The Key to Being Top: Danganronpa
by Meta King
Summary: At a party commemorating the new batch of students selected for Hope's Peak Academy, two young students that happen to have decided to hide their name at the same time get into a fight. A man calling himself "Piano" has an interesting experience after meeting the enigma that is "Velvet Soft," who claims to be... The Ultimate Mary Sue? Takes place in a non-KG non-despair universe.
1. Chapter 1: No More Sleep in Tokyo

"Thank you, really," he insisted for the fourth time in a row at the poor and unsuspecting waiter. "You didn't have to go out of your way like this."

"Sir, you were only sitting two tables away." The tired man peered off, obviously trying his best to politely disconnect to get back to his work. "It is literally my job to give you people drinks."

Sadly for the waiter, Yorokobi Ida did not know the meaning of the word 'codependent.' "And a wonderful job at that! The beverage industry is lovely, isn't it?" He cupped the glass of not-quite champagne in his hand, peering into its milky foam with wonder. It probably tasted terrible, he figured, but he thought not to engage his inner drink snob. "I mean, even just back at the brewery, it was so nice to-"

He paused when he noticed that the waiter had already left, nowhere to be seen. A sigh escaped his lips.

Yorokobi was normally a social young man, but his weakness had always been meet and greet parties. He was the friendly type and he tried to be the approachable sort that one could always engage with and get any sort of help from. His issue here though was that he had a definite deficit when it came to openly meeting and approaching complete strangers.

Even back at home, it was usually his dad or one of the other co-workers that started up conversation with the new patrons. He would join in eventually, but it was always after someone else proved them to be trustworthy enough. More often though, he would just find himself comfortably talking to the regulars.

Still though, he wanted to be there for anyone that needed him. It was what made him feel valued.

As such, he sat silently in his leather chair as he watched everyone around him mingle like an array of stars in a galaxy. His eyes would notice a few of them being more unusual than others, and some that seemed to be avoiding interaction entirely. He considered trying to go after one of the fellow wall flowers, but he didn't want to be rude or impose- another weakness of his when it came to these sorts of parties.

"Man, Hope's Peak really is nice, huh?" Leaning forward in his seat with a chin in his palm, he looked up at the oddly detailed array of golden arches and swirls that covered the ceiling like the waving curls of the ocean. His other hand came to fiddle with the buttons on the breast of his leather jacket. He always liked the design for Another Sun better than the others, it had more personality he thought. Still though, it all reminded him why he was here in the first place. It made him feel needed. It was nice.

As much as he felt proud of what he could do for the world, part of him couldn't help but think that he wouldn't fit in as much among the fanciness of Japan's upper class shenanigans. After all, he was no more than a simple country boy at his roots. In fact, he-

"OwO?"

Yorokobi flinched.

":D"

What was that infernal sound? Immediately bewildered, he squinted and looked around, only to find the physical manifestation of hell that had been trying to get his attention. Too weirded out to reply, he stared in awe and shock for a good few seconds.

"hewwo!1!" She was the oddest thing that he had ever witnessed. "How r u? Is gud?" Her pastel soft eyes of blue flickered and blinked with rapid pace, glittering in the dim lighting of the high-end club.

He took a long moment before he could figure out what to say. "... I'm good?" He answered with fear like the little bitch that he was.

":O" She said. Yorokobi wondered how she said that, but he found himself unable to come up with an answer. Her talent with whatever _this _was seemed extraordinary.

Without another word, she crawled out from behind his chair and sat herself both awkwardly and stylishly on the table, peering down at him with an odd and vacant smile all the while. He wondered how safe it was to be sitting on the table like that, but he was more concerned for his own selfish safety at the sight of this cryptid.

"So, uh-" He awkwardly began to talk but was quickly interrupted.

"M'lady." The blue-haired mystery tipped her navy colored fedora at a random passerby.

Neither of them said anything, though the odd girl looked back to him with an expectant look.

"Who are... Uh... Who're you?" Yorokobi tried his best to smile like he would for any paying customer, but this felt different. It was as if his life was on the line. Despite this, he wouldn't let it ruin his reputation of trying to be nice when it counted. "Are you one of the new students too? I don't think I've seen you online- oh, wait, sorry if that came out wrong! I don't go on the internet very-"

":D" Once again, he was cut off. He didn't even know how he was, but he was. It was as if some sort of fourth dimensional force that this woman was capable of wielding had somehow prevented him from even speaking. Her smile was befitting of a plastic toy doll, and he wasn't sure if his already fragile masculinity could handle that.

An awkward silence came and went as the muffled jazz music continued to play in the distance.

Eventually, she spoke. It was one of the most perplexing introductions he had ever heard. "aaAAA? u's wants 2 kno? im Velvet Soft!1! ;D" Her voice was bouncing all over the place and as high as helium, only making the entire thing more surreal. For a moment, Yorokobi felt as if he had been trapped in some sort of children's anime. " i am ultimate talent is has!? Marysue!111! Is I Ultimate Mary Sue its cause i am perfecc tee hee!"

Yorokobi had troubled times in his life before. Sometimes he considered self-harm, or even suicide... But this? This was definitely one of the strongest arguments for not wanting to be a part of this world that he had ever seen.

All he could muster was a simple, "What?"

"aaAAA? u's wants 2 kno? im Velvet Soft!1! ;D" She repeated the same lines with terrifying accuracy. " i am ultimate talent is has!? Marysue!111! Is I Ultimate Mary Sue its cause i am perfecc tee hee!"

He blinked. He blinked again. Much to his terror, she was still there no matter how much he blinked. "Nice... To meet... You...?" His words were intentionally drawn out. He didn't want to seem as if he was trying to get her to go away, but he would take any opportunity to get out of this situation if he could.

"ye"

"..."

He hated this. He didn't hate her, he tried not to hate people whenever he could, but he wasn't comfortable with the uncertainty in the air. He wanted to make people happy, but he didn't know what the fuck was going on.

"My name's, ah," he tried to speak running his thumb over the glass of children safe champagne-like drink as a means of fidgeting away his nervousness. "Yorokobi Ida?" He sounded almost uncertain, which was fair considering how much this woman challenged the concept of reality itself. "I was chosen as the Ultimate Craft Brewer this year, and-"

":0 brewings? liek alcohol and beer and stuffles?" She made an anger expression. "Dats illegal!"

Starting to sweat, he took a sip of his predictably mediocre drink before replying as a way to buy time before having to initiate more conversation. "All I do is just design the recipes..." In truth he tasted his own works on several occasions, drinking laws were pretty lax in his town, but he thought it best to not mention that. "I really just make beer though. I help my father and his brewing company with creating all of the-"

"I'm better at it," she interrupted without hesitation.

Yorokobi wasn't sure how to respond. "Uh... You mean brewing? That's... Cool?" He knew that if she was in his field he definitely would have heard about some weirdo named 'Velvet Soft,' but he didn't mention that either.

"I'm better than you at it." She stated simply.

After a long breath, all Yorokobi could do was give a simple response of his own. "... Okay?"

Velvet looked into his green saucer eyes with an unreadable expression, almost as if trying to judge him. He squinted, a little uncomfortable by the sudden examination. She squinted back, mimicking him for some unpredictable reason.

"K" she left.

Yorokobi flicked his chestnut hair of fringe back to the side of his face before looking at himself deep in the mirror. He wouldn't let anything awkward like that happen once he stepped back out to the party floor. Determination held in his face as he rested his hands on the sink.

"Look at you, pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. C'mon, man, you're not gonna let that one weird moment define your entire next two years of high school, right?" He took a deep breath. "Besides, it's not like she's here right now or anything."

After taking a moment to cautiously check around him in the men's bathroom for the Mary Sue, he looked back to his reflection. "What the hell am I saying? It's just one person that I talked to for a few seconds! They were probably just trying to mess with me or something, maybe one of those flash mob things. Now, you're gonna go out, make some friends, and make yourself useful to someone, and you're gonna like it! Just like dad said."

After splashing another sblib of water on his face and wiping it off, he looked at his mirror copy one last time before letting out a deep sigh and leaving back to the world unknown.

The night was approaching, and the lights had dimmed appropriately in the expansive catering hall. Part of Yorokobi's troubles was that of how new to him everything was. Back at home he hadn't even been inside a building with more than four stories, but here he was on the twelfth level of some weird bigshot skyscraper in Tokyo with the most elite youth in the country. At the very least, he was going to try some of the weird fancy sounding sushi that his dad had been bugging him to try. Yorokobi didn't even know what half of the species of fish listed on the buffet menu _were._

Unfortunately for him and his poor education in marine life however, the first thing that caught his eye was the unmistakable white and blue blur that was Velvet Soft herself. This time, it seemed that she had found herself a new target who was being much less passive about things than Yorokobi was. Regrettably, Yorokobi's personality also compelled him to try to mitigate any sources of conflict, which brought him walking right up to the scene.

Standing against the glimmering lights of the city below was a relatively lanky and nerdy man who brimmed eccentricity. To further add to his oddness, her wore some sort of galactic print apron over his fine clothes- something that Yorokobi figured was just a part of the weirdness that he would have to get used to attending the school. Either way, he could easily tell that he wasn't having a good time with the "Mary Sue."

"Just back off, you crazy bitch!" He also seemed very capable of raising his voice. A crowd was already starting to gather around the two. "Don't you know who I am!? I could boil and eat a sow like you for breakfast!"

"o" Velvet simply replied. "Dat's awfully dewogatowee wanguage foww a wittle girl liek me..."

The man pointed a finger back at her aggressively, despite her seemingly passive remark. "Listen here, you miserable waste of space... I came to this bloody academy to get my damn degree and that's all I'm here for! I don't give a damn about whatever 'education' or agenda they're gonna push on me, I'm just out here to prove myself! To prove that I'm perfect at everything that I try for-!"

"Wats ur name" she batted her pwetty eyes liek the magical miracle gorl princess that she was!

Yorokobi considered trying to step in as the black haired man took his time, but he didn't have the time before the reply came. "Piano." His face relaxed, and a certain smug look rose on his face. "Call me Piano. I'm the Ultimate Patissier. I make baked goods, cakes, and pastries and the like. I make sure to always be perfect with every recipe I craft." He quickly regained composure, standing straight up as he whipped a strand of his hair away from his face. "Unlike those filthy casuals that call themselves bakers_, I strive for-"_

"ur monologuing 2 much mister."

The man named after a large musical instrument stopped in place, pausing perfectly as everything around him froze for just a moment. "Excuse me?"

Velvet shrugged. "idk ur tell me man, I'm not named after a large musical instrument. :D"

"At least I'm not the slut with some unrespectable fucking name like 'Belvet Boft' or whatever! The hell are you supposed to be, anyway!?" In an instant, Piano had snapped again and was approaching her with a triggered look in his eyes. "The cake you were supposed to pop out of isn't supposed to arrive for another half hour, you second rate-"

"Again," Velvet wasn't phased by his sudden approach. If she was anyways, she showed no signs of it. Instead, she simply looked him in the eye with a sudden narrow glare. "That's awfully derogatory language. I recommend you stop before you start running someone else's name in the ground." For whatever reason, the squeak in her voice had vanished and been replaced by a deadly serious tone.

Yorokobi stepped towards the two after noticing that no one around him seemed to take issue, holding a hand out passively despite the fact that realistically it would do nothing since he's a beta male. "Hey, guys, let's calm this down, okay?"

Piano ignored him. "You can't tell me what to do, you posing bitch!" He reached out, grabbing Velvet by the shirt on the inside, pulling it closer towards him. "Is this just cause you're ashamed you don't have any breasts!? Is that it!? Why else would you be dressing like some common street whore with your bra on display like that! It's like you're asking to get-"

"I would now _heavily_ that you don't finish that sentence," she interrupted without hesitation. "Either way, you already did more than I expected." Firmly, her hand grabbed onto his wrist with a sudden and frightening grip. "Not only is this derogatory language," she dug her nails deeper into his skin as she spoke with cool composure, "But you've also committed sexual harassment. I feel bad for the Hope's Peak faculty that have to deal with you."

The moment stuck for longer than it needed to. A tense air filtered through the area despite the contrasting warm and flamboyant atmosphere around them.

After a sigh and a smile slowly starting to cross his lips, Piano retracted his hand and Velvet hers. "Ah... Okay... I see, so that's how it is! Clever, clever... So you're one of those women that plays bait and then plays the victim card, huh? I've heard all about your type back over in America..."

A smug face starting to come back to him, he turned away as he spoke and approached the large window to peer down at the anthills of people beneath him. "They don't always go over that well. No one respects the dishonest. I think that's all you are. Even going to the extent of using a fake name just like _her?_ No shame...!"

Despite his incredibly fluctuating mood, he turned back to peer towards her with a grin cocked. "But not me, no," he began, "that's not me! I'm full of pride! I do what I do, and I'm the best at everything I try. I don't hide my talent, and my name is hidden for the honor of a legacy, dearheart. Now what do you have? False promises and broken dreams? I imagine you cretins in Japan are too busy gouging on anime to care much about reality anyway."

Yorokobi was discomforted by this blatant racism, but didn't say anything. This man was too imposing for him, somehow.

":D" Was all that Velvet... Said?

Piano's smugness ran off yet again, replaced this time by a grimace of the face. "What on Earth sort of reply is that? Answer me, you mutt."

":D"

"Stop that!" He snapped back, clearly agitated by her method of fucking with his mind.

":D"

All Piano could do was grunt. His fists balled up and wound tense as he started walking towards her again.

":D"

Yorokobi tried to step in, but it was too late. The easily triggered man launched at Velvet, holding his fist high in a desperate attempt to vent his anger onto the annoying enigma. Before he could push his hand down to attack the flinching girl though, something else stopped him.

"Oi, oi... That's no fun. Violence always leads to the same end, Monsieur." A red headed man, seeming to have come from nowhere, held Piano's arm back effortlessly. With a tired and vacant look, he stared over to the crowd amassed. "You all can go along your merry ways, ladies and gents. Today is meant to be _magnifique!_ You needn't worry yourselves over petty drama such as this. Just how the new students always are, it seems."

Flinching himself, Piano slowly craned his head to look up at the charmingly faced womanizer of a person. "You're... You're one of the third year students, aren't you? I remember you."

He let go of Piano's wrist, causing the patissier to stumble downwards and fall to the ground. "Qui qui, you got me!" His previously uninterested glaze seemed to dissipate as he looked towards Velvet and Yorokobi, the only two still hanging around after his statement. "My name is Takumi Kikuchi, it's a pleasure to meet the new class of students! Mwah!"

A wide and playful smile came onto his lips as he edged closer to the two. "Ultimate Con Art_ist!_ Focus on the _-tist,_ people! I focus on art above all else, it's what keeps people like me alive, after all."

"Let's see... I already know that this young troublemaker on the ground here is 'Piano,' but..." He peered between Yorokobi and Velvet with speculative looks. "The other troublemaker is obviously whoever 'Velvet' is, and if I remember correctly, then... Yorokobi?" He squinted towards the brewer with his best guess.

He carefully nodded in reply. "Yes, sir. You're in the class above mine then? I appreciate your preparedness! That's some pretty good foresight of-"

"Get used to it, kid. That's how the best of the best operate. Don't talk about the mundane like it's exciting, it just bores the rest of us eventually." Takumi dismissed.

Grunting, Piano got back up and peered over at the three of them. "Hey! I have unfinished business with that girl! She's trying to make a fool of me!"

Once again, Yorokobi attempted to be the middle man. "Hey, listen, the crowd's gone now, okay? It's over, can't we all just get along and have some fun? It's a party-"

"It's a boring party," Takumi chimed in daintily, stepping quickly over to Yorokobi as the other two started to fuss again. "I say let them go at it," he spoke quietly. "Things get so predictable, even in a place like this. But watching these two is the most fun I've had all day!"

"Um...?" Yorokobi wasn't immediately sure how to respond to the request. Still though, his good samaritanism refused him to find anything other than a healthy compromise. "Can they at least do it in private though? This could get messy for the school if it goes on for too long, not that this is that good in the first place."

The redhead paused for a moment as he considered the perspective, peering over to the other two again to watch their squabbling slowly heat up. After a short moment, he looked back. "Alright, you have sense where it counts. I'm pretty sure there's a karaoke bar a few stories down, that should work, non? They allow minors! I'll even let you come, you're the only witness I have left, after all!"

Begrudgingly, Yorokobi agreed. "Alright, fine I guess, I just don't want anyone getting hurt."

"Brilliant!"

* * *

Takumi Kikuchi was the last to sit down in the private room, opting to rest himself on a simple wooden chair as he faced the three others, all of whom had been lounging on the enormous U-shaped leather sofa. "So then... It seems that there's only one reasonable deduction when it comes to what went down, though I think it best that we all keep our opinions to ourselves, yes?"

Yorokobi, Piano, and Velvet gave muffled replies of confirmation, though Yorokobi was a little miffed that he had been called in for a judgement call that didn't seem to need to happen in the first place.

"Very well then, I like the enthusiasm." Already leaning back, Takumi extended his hands out in a welcoming gesture to the two most involved with the situation. "Velvet? Piano? I wonder what reasons you'd all have for hiding your names on a day like this... The internet exists, you know! I'm sure I could find you guys out there..."

Crossing his arms, Piano scoffed at the idea. "I doubt it. All I do is bake goods. That doesn't need a public name behind it."

"Maybe not," Takumi mused with a smirk, "But you being here would absolutely mean that someone in the Hope's Peak building knows your name, even if you don't know that. The faculty here don't like to mess around, after all! If they didn't, who knows what sort of weird terrorism could ensue? Riots, bombings, theft, games of killing, all sorts of weird stuff could happen, so therefore it's in the school's best goal to be proactive and know without a shadow of a doubt how much of a risk each student is."

The two of them stayed silent for a moment, peering at each other with tense and narrow eyes. Yorokobi felt awkwardly trapped in the situation.

The trickster of a man let his arms back down, glancing between them all with a tilted smile. "Look, I think I know what this is about. There was that one person with a fake name in the last class and you're just inspired by her, right? All it takes is one young lady calling herself 'Ratto Osore' and suddenly it becomes a craze!"

Noticing the odd yet thoughtful looks of those around him, Yorokobi spoke up. "Uh... Who's that? I don't really pay attention to too much news or anything like that," He said, allowing for the reader to gain even more exposition, as that is the main appeal of reading a piece of fiction.

"woman" Velvet added helpfully.

"Ratto Osore, the Ultimate Servant. She just recently graduated and was a year above Takumi. She was so reclusive and distant that no one learned her real name. Apparently she somehow got her legal name changed and all previous records had gone missing." Piano added unhelpfully. "Why should you care anyway, you barnacle worm? Your pride isn't on the line here!"

"pwide?" The you-know-who of the room chimed in. "u think dis is aboot pwide? :O ur evan dumbr then i thot!1!"

Now distracted once again by the most important person there, Piano snapped back. "Of course it is! That's how it is for both of us! We're both trying to make a statement about who we are here. Now that Ratto Osore is gone, there's a power gap for-"

"no"

Piano opened his mouth to quip back, most likely with more vague (yet oddly specific) and mildly offensive insults, but Yorokobi quickly piped in and directed attention back to Takumi. "Hey! I just came here because _you_ needed help sorting this stuff out. Didn't you want to help settle this?"

The con artist closed his eyes and pondered before leaning forward and grabbing a glass of water from off of the table. He looked over to Yorokobi and spoke, "Fantastic idea, monsieur! I could think of no better way to handle this situation." He didn't drink from the water, and only waved it around in his hand to make himself seem more important and eccentric. "Whether it's pride or something else, the fact of the matter is that this school isn't big enough for the two of you, right? You want to be known for who you are, and not the fact that you're one of the two people who are affiliated with being shady about what your parents gave you at birth."

Again, neither of his two targets answered, though their silence was easily taken as affirmation. All Yorokobi could do was watch the man as he went on, not trusting his easygoing and almost drunken demeanor.

"I propose a game! With a bet, at that," his voice devolved into a rampant giggle before he went on. "Loser of the bet gets themselves fessed up to the public, how about that? This should help settle your little dispute, _non?"_

"Wot? y?"

"Hm? 'Why?' Whatever could you mean? I'm simply offering my own inputs..."

Shuffling in his seat, Piano glared over at the man. "As much as I hate to say it, you're so blindingly suspicious that even someone like her can have a point. You said yourself that you're a con artist. It might be good for us, but what do you have to do with all of this?"

"Nothing, I suppose." Takumi fairly replied. "That's what makes me perfect for the role of an overseer. All I want is a good game."

"A game?" Yorokobi piped up with muzzled eyebrows and an edge to his tone. "I thought we were going to help resolve things!"

He just shrugged back. "A game would do that, would it not? Life is so boring nowadays, so I take any chance I can to make it interesting. You'd be surprised at how depressingly easy it is to predict what's going on in the heads of all the little men and women around this place..."

Velvet leaned back in her spot, bringing a finger to her chin to overdramatically think as she looked at Takumi. "OwO? Ur weird mistew but continwue"

"Hope's Peak Academy... The idea is simple and noble enough, sure," He slouched back on the chair, shrugging to his small audience with ease and lack of remorse, "But it's still the same as the rest of the world. People bicker, get petty, and repeat the same patterns over and over again. When a carrot dangles in front of the pig, it walks towards it. The same applies here, except that carrot just so happens to have billions of yen in potential funding."

Piano smiled. "True enough I suppose, but what's your point? Isn't this a simple dispute between two people? What does your philosophy special have to do with anything?"

"Maybe it's nothing, maybe I'm just rambling or venting about how annoyed I am..." He stretched his arms out and gave a high pitched groan, faking a yawn. "Or maybe I'm setting the stage for something else! This world is filled with elites, and the clever are the ones already destined to win... So it is up to us that are clever to amuse ourselves in the meantime!"

Yorokobi held back his temptation to tell the man that he was insane.

A pounding came at the door, interrupting the pleasantries of the night. The locked doorknob jiggled furiously, and a muffled myriad of shouts came from the other side. The four couldn't help but stare in varying levels of curiosity as the commotion continued.

"Not it!" Takumi exclaimed.

Shortly after, Piano followed. "Nor me."

Velvet and Yorokobi gave each other uncertain glances, both of them seeming to be too polite to speak up. He hadn't expected her to restrain herself like that, but it was a pleasant surprise nonetheless.

They both awkwardly got up at the same time and went to check on the door as the other two watched. Insistent on trying to do as much for others as he could, Yorokobi was the one to cut ahead and pull on the handle.

"Izanami Yawarakai!" A grungy looking teen pounced in past Yorokobi, yelling without restraint. "Ultimate Critic! Izanami Yawarakai, the Ultimate Critic!"

Yorokobi flinched and looked at him with wide eyes. "Wh-what? Hey, what's going on!? Is someone hurt?"

All the messily dressed man (though calling him a man would probably be too much of a compliment even by Yorokobi's standards, just judging by his demeanor alone) did was point aggressively at Velvet Soft. "Her! That bitch! The fucking liar! Her real name's-"

":D"

He yelped, taking a step back with a pissed expression. "Goddamnit, you witch! Witch bitch! Bitch witch! Wbwitch!" That's not a word, but he said it anyway?

"dewogatowee wanguage! dewogatowee wanguage mistew" velvet said back to him because she speaks 4 women right

"Of course I'd degrade _you_ of all people!" He hissed back. "Cut the act out, you're not fooling anyone here, Izanami! What sorta fooling did'ya expect to be doing around here with a stupid ass name like that, anyways!?"

Yorokobi took a step towards the two, but 'Velvet' signalled a hand for him to stop. "It's alright, I've got this," she calmly stated in that shockingly normal voice again.

She tilted her gaze over to the newcomer and spoke with a convicted confidence. "You trying to belittle my name isn't funny anymore, Junsei. All you're doing is being sour again. Don't you have better things to do that be petty?"

"No! Wait, yes! Fuck you!" Junsei snapped back without much thought. "You can't just run away from us and expect me not to follow! I had to spend half a goddamn hour trying to figure out that you guys came all the way down here!"

Piano calmly sipped from his own glass of water, though Yorokobi doubted that it was actually water and not just another clear type of beverage. "I pity the gremlin folk that had to play a part in your little investigation, then. I send my condolences."

Junsei flipped aside his brown bangs and snarled at the composed and dignified man. "Watch it, muffin man! I ain't dumber than a piece of coral, y'know."

"Excuse me, but I'm the one who reserved this room." Takumi reminded with a calm attitude. "May I please request a formal explanation of the situation? We were just getting to the good part of things before someone had to rain on our parade, you _perdante."_

After a short moment, Junsei took a sight and scratched at his ear mildly. "Aight, aight, I get it. I'll explain."

The poser of a human being sauntered closer to Velvet, who seemed to be eyeing him with contempt. "This loser over here is technically my sister, though she's adopted of course." He turned back to look at Takumi with a casual grin. "It's a long story, but basically she's just annoying. Her name's Izanami Yawarakai, she's the Ultimate Critic, and all she ever does is pester me."

"I wonder why," She hissed out, though obviously restraining herself from harsher words.

Junsei tried to reach his hand over to poke at her hat but she swatted it away. "It's okay, one day you'll admit you love me with that weird brother-sister love stuff, right? You'll learn to stop being a disrespectful cunt some day, I have faith!"

Yorokobi desperately attempted to change the subject, sensing the potential train wreck about to occur. "Uh, you said you were her... Brother? But you're just not blood related, right? And she called you Junsei? Junsei Yawarakai then?"

Like a goldfish, he turned to peek at the brewer with open and smiling eyes. "Yupperonis, you've got it correctomundo, _except_ for my name. She never got her name changed to match ours cause... I don't actually know, really. Maybe she was too old or something." His smile widened and he gave a shrug at the thought. "Either way, my name's Junsei Ino."

"Ino...?" Piano's interest had been piqued. "As in the prolific Motoichi Ino?"

Junsei snapped a finger gun towards the fellow asshole with a confirming smile at the mildly racist assumption Piano had made.

As if he hadn't just insulted the other a few moments past, Piano smiled back in response. Yorokobi noticed it was the first time that he had smiled without some sort of condescension. "Oh really? I don't find myself reading too much fiction, but I appreciate what I have seen. If I had to choose, I'd say that he's my favorite Japanese author, disregarding many of the scientists that-"

"I'm already stopping you from talking because I know it will be boring," Takumi interrupted.

"Thank you," Junsei groaned. "I hate people going on and on about my pops like that... It's just annoying!"

"I think he might be the only person alive who still likes him after what he's done," the woman that Yorokobi figured was just 'Izanami' now slithered with her words, "I suppose that's just another difference betwen mii and u, pinny!1!" she winksed piano!

Junsei rolled his eyes and opened his mouth, but Takumi cut him off.

"Excuse me, but we _were_ having our own independent discussions. I must kindly ask that you give us our time to allow us to finish what we were doing, yes?" He asked, hiding several layers of irritation. "Now before you ask what we were doing and attempt to sabotage this fine lady any more, please understand that the answer to whether or not you can help prank her and get her onto your meme board on the internet is a firm no, okay?"

"Hey, how'd you know I was gonna do that? You a damn psychic or something?" Junsei muttered as the glittering red haired man approached him with kind menace. "What's up with-" He was again cut off.

"What's up with me, huh? Why do I look like some sorta 'weird Hollywood gangster?'" He started to push the greaseball away and towards the door. "What's up with me is what's down for you, and you're going to be 'down' to learn that I still reserve the right to kick people out of here because I paid for this room! And you'll be up to learn that I'm down to make you pay for it if you intend to be so steadfast on crashing down on this little game of mine, understood?"

By the time he shut the door on Junsei's face, all he could mutter out was a simple, "Huh?"

After slamming away the interruption, Takumi leaned his body back against the door to make sure it didn't get forced open. "You'd think they'd get better at keeping this stuff private and locked, considering the reputation these rooms can sometimes have with certain crowds of people..."

"haha drug and sex joke!1 fonny"

Piano gave a glare to her as Takumi went over to take his seat again.

Yorokobi tried to find the best silver lining in the situation and cracked the silence. "Well, uh... I guess that makes the whole 'game' thing pointless now, right? We can just all agree that her name's Izanami and move one without doing any of this silly stuff, can't we?" He gave a smile brimming with hope yet expecting failure.

"Hell no," Izanami replied in a far more usual and composed voice notably deeper than the :D stuff. Yorokobi was impressed by her vocal range. "I want to win against this scumbag," she continued as her eyes narrowed at Piano, "he's exactly the kind of man I hate, y'know. You just think you're really that important, don't you?"

He scoffed at the notion with that same smarmy amusement he had shown before. "Oh please, really? Spare me with that, it's not like you're doing much better miss 'star of the universe.' How can you expect anyone to take you seriously with all the stuff you do?"

"How can you expect anyone to take you seriously when all you do is bake?"

Before Piano could snap off at that well deserved and amazingly executed comeback, Takumi interrupted with a loud presence. "Alright then, I think that makes this about as easy as it has to be. Me and Yorokobi shall be acting as the referees in a match of seeing who can publically uncover the other's real name _and_ talent before the other!"

"What?" Piano tilted his glare towards him. "But that annoying peasant boy just came in and gave me both of those, shouldn't that just make it easy for me?"

Takumi gave a warm smile to Piano, trying to sell the idea as hard as he could. "Ah! But that is such an ease to handle, monsieur! All that needs to be done is we focus on the _public_ part of what I declared!" His words bounced energetically off the walls like a madman's ramblings; he was clearly interested in this idea. "It's a matter of who can show that there's a way that the average person could find out your name with enough dedication! All you need to do is prove that you've done a better job at being sneaky!"

"... That doesn't answer my question. I can still just tell the public what her name is," Piano reminded.

The youth and vibrant color in Takumi's face slowly melted. "Oh? Is that really what you think?" His words were oddly accusatory as he slowly glanced down with arched eyes to grimace at him. "Why do you think I said we'd have refs, you nitwit? A game's not a game if it's too predictable, nor is it fun. The world we live in is too boring and predictable, so I want to make it _fun._ You won't be allowed to do that, you shelf-headed mop with glasses."

Piano took the point and nodded in silence.

"Excuse me, but I also have something to mention here..." Yorokobi slowly raised his hand up, a little hesitant to speak after Takumi's display. "I never signed up for this, and I don't really get what's going on here... All I wanted to do was to help settle a dispute," he muttered awkwardly, "This feels a little weird is all."

"Of course it's weird, it's fun. Things that are fun aren't common around here, so people always call them weird," Takumi dryly stated. It seemed that he wasn't very keen on changing his mind on this.

Yorokobi frooze for a moment. He couldn't empathize with this at all, but maybe the man had a point that he just couldn't get. Perhaps, on some level, it was all just humans trying to be comfortable with themselves. He asked another question. "Alright, sure, but we should at least check if the other two want to do it, right?" A large part of him hoped that someone wouldn't be just so that he could run away from this rabbit hole he found himself trapped inside of.

"I don't see any issue with going along with this little match." Piano tilted his glasses upwards as he looked over to Izanami. His glasses did the thing in anime where they glare and light up in a really cool way. "I do everything that I do as perfectly as possible, I don't intend to break that streak anytime soon. I will be the one on top, you know."

Izanami caught his glare back, stoically keeping a straight poker face as she spoke, "I'll go with it too. I want to make smug assholes like him drop where they stand, so this may as well be a good start. It'll make up for having my name out there, at least."

"Hm? Already expecting to lose, you harem starter wannabe?" Piano retorted with a completely nonsensical remark. "Expected more of a fight."

Izanami was stoic in silence.

"... So, uh," Yorokobi cleared his throat. "It's just about researching and finding a way to show the public what their names really are, right?" He inquired meekly.

"What a fabulous summary of something I explained less than five minutes ago, _monsieur!"_ Takumi clapped his hands condescendingly like a thirty year old woman sick of her job working at a daycare congratulating a child that just figured out that the square box goes inside of the square hole. Yorokobi wasn't sure what to make of it. "I shall act as referee over Piano, whilst you shall watch over Izanami to ensure that no naughty business occurs."

Everyone seemed content for a moment, before Yorokobi spoke up again. "Wait, what sort of illegal stuff could she do? Isn't Piano the one you're worried about?"

Takumi shifted from his seat, placing the glass of water back on the table as he did so. A low and soft chuckle flowed from his canine lips as he stared into Yorokobi's direction, mischievous intent clear in his sparkling arched eyes. "Why do you think I assigned him to myself, and her to you? I work with what I have, dear. It's only fair to give the person with the biggest advantage the biggest handicap."

Piano scoffed a little at that last remark.

"This could be a valuable lesson since you're one of the new students... If there's one thing I want from a game like this," Takumi continued as he slithered away from his seat, starting to pace Yorokobi's direction. "It's gotta be fun. And to be fun, a game has to be even and unpredictable. Otherwise the victor would be too obvious."

* * *

And that's the end of our first part of this unusual adventure. Feedback is always welcome! Sorry if there was a lot to take in here, but I hope that over time this series can grow into something special. I have the next two chapters written out already so those might come out fairly soon, but after that there might be a bit of a wait. I'll provide more updates in the future, so stay tuned!


	2. Chapter 2: Don't Stand So Close

It only took a day's passing for Izanami to call him and try to meet up for business. Part of him wished that the school year would start sooner so that he could say that he had to study as an excuse, but he knew that he was too much of a wimp to say that even if it was true. Instead, he found himself helplessly stuck inside of a meandering city bus for the fifth time that day.

"He's already on the defensive, so I say we go further on the aggressive." Izanami was, yet again, attempting to consider her strategy for the situation. Thankfully she had dropped the Velvet facade when she was just talking with him, but it seemed that her usual self could be just as talkative.

"Wouldn't being defensive just... Counteract that, though? Make us waste time?" Yorokobi mumbled, not terribly invested in the conversation at this point. He looked out the window, peering mildly at the hordes of passerby.

Izanami continued to think aloud, her own gaze travelling between the commuters already on the bus with them both. "Not really, especially since he probably still thinks he has the advantage. Realistically it won't take much to reveal all there is to know about me since he has somewhere to start, which means that he would know that my only option is to try to win against him before he can do that, right?"

Yorokobi didn't have the energy to contribute much to the conversation, but he did his best anyway just to appease the girl. "But you don't have any way of doing that... Of the nine people you said you wanted to talk to today, we've met eight and all of them don't know anything about him. It's kinda creepy how secretive he is, but that doesn't get us anywhere."

"You're awfully defeatist for an Ultimate student, aren't you?" She retorted. "It's not a matter of who can dig up information the soonest, it's about outplaying them. That's how you destroy a smug bastard like him."

Her words had a determined glint to them, but he couldn't help but just roll his eyes timidly as he glanced back outside to the people who were actually getting to enjoy their school breaks. "Yeah, I guess."

Not seeming sure how to handle his waning interest, Izanami continued to attempt a few more avenues of theorization and speculation, but they all ended the same. She had run out of things to say, and he had run out of patience for dealing with the situation. Every now and then he would ask a redundantly basic question, but that was all that she was getting out of the interaction.

Eventually they had gotten off of the bus and started their mild trot through one of the city's business districts, both of them attempting to not stand out too much as obvious anime-looking teenagers. Yorokobi hung his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket as he trudged along near the tall girl.

"I've noticed that you don't seem especially interested by all of this," Izanami stated rather plainly, as if it wasn't intensely obvious at that point.

He let out a light sigh as he skipped onto the crosswalk they were approaching. "Well, yeah. I try to be understanding and nice with people, but this is just all kinda weird, don't you think? Do you sorts of people really live like this?"

"I wouldn't say I'm the same sort of person as Takumi and Piano, so I can't really speak for them, but..." She stared ahead of her, stepping lightly on the road with confidence in her gaze. "I suppose you could say that this is what I do, though it's not really as well put together as this whole game is typically."

"Oh yeah, aren't you a critic or something?" He added, "I remember your brother mentioning that, I almost forgot in all the chaos. What's that like?"

"I critique things."

Yorokobi nodded. "Well alright then. What sort of stuff do you critique?"

"Things."

He nodded again, a little less enthusiastically. "Well alright then."

"What, can you blame me for being a little preoccupied right now?" Already back onto the safety of the sidewalk, Izanami went back to peering up at the tall and bland buildings around her. Yorokobi couldn't figure why, since they were just office buildings and all, but there was something about them that seemed to capture her. "I'm not one for small talk. There's something I want to get done, and that means I'll dedicate every part of me to achieve it."

Not sure how to respond at first without offending the woman, Yorokobi trailed behind her. "Well, maybe it's just the country bumpkin in me, but what about this is so important to you anyway? Isn't this really just a pride match more than anything?"

"That's exactly it. It's a matter of pride," She swung back without hesitation. "That's why I have to win against this disaster of a person."

Again he found himself at a loss, but Yorokobi soon found the courage to speak again. "Y'know, there's more to enjoy in life than just being prideful," He suggested. "Trust me, I know what it's like! I once spent a solid couple months trying to perfect this one recipe until I realized I couldn't. I think it's more important to have friends that you can rely on."

"You're missing my point," She insisted. "This isn't about me taking pride in myself. I don't give a damn about that stuff, really. Why do you even think I keep telling people I'm the Ultimate Mary Sue?"

"Uh... Well, to be perfectly honest Izanami, I'm still not entirely sure," He said truthfully.

She stopped and Yorokobi followed suit. Peering back at him with her deep and cold aqua eyes, he could see something more to her than she had already shown. "It's to catch people like 'Piano,' the truest scum of the world." There was an edge to her eyes that he hadn't caught before, something about their sleek design that reminded him of a predator on the hunt. "By mocking those that I hate the most, I can call them right to me. It's like an invitation to a challenge that they can't help but step up to. I find that the ones that get the most annoyed by it are the ones that most deserve it."

Yorokobi's first thought was that this girl must not have very many friends, but he burrowed that thought away and considered it best not to mention it. "I guess I can kinda see where you're coming from, but isn't that a little... Extreme?"

"No," She rebutteled. "What I hate the most are people who think they're perfect. My talent is just a consequence of that, I don't even take any pride in it. All that I do is usurp the throne from people who think that they deserve it just by existing."

Yorokobi gave a blank look to the go-getter of a girl for a short pause before she started walking towards their destination again. "You saw what my brother Junsei was like, didn't you? I've lived with people like that all my life. No matter where I go my family always ends up being the same, and yet the people that strive for perfection the most are the ones that get it the least... Ironic, isn't it?"

"I guess?" He really didn't understand what was going on fully. He was doing his best. He wondered if this woman even had any strong female role models in her life.

"Whatever. I'm not here to try to convince you of anything," She reminded. "You're just here because of the game's rules, right? I don't really care what you do as long as I'm still able to fulfill that goal and beat Piano."

Still unsure about the idea of this game in the first place, Yorokobi kept silent again. He never understood how people could be so competitive at times, especially when something as big as their high school education was just around the corner. Still though, his inner voice had to commend her for determination.

After another few minutes of meaningless babble, the two stopped in front of another one of the identical looking office buildings. If it weren't for Izanami's signalling, he would have walked right past the tame looking mountain of concrete. As far as he could tell, there wasn't anything special about it other than a few windows that didn't have their lights on and a few incredibly uninteresting names by the front door.

"This is it?" Yorokobi tried to make sure, almost managing to not notice where it was again despite staring straight at the inexplicably dull place.

"What, did you expect a legal expert like this guy to hang around in a nightclub at a time like this?" She snarked back. "He doesn't live anywhere close to here anyway, so this is our best way of getting to meet with the guy in person."

Again, Yorokobi couldn't help but feel that people were taking this a bit too seriously. Nevertheless, he continued to play along. "Couldn't we have just met him for lunch or something? I like walking and all, but I'm not really an office building kind of guy..."

"It's about time management, Mr. Sunshine. If there's so much as a chance that our opponent could get to him before we could, I wouldn't be very happy." Her attitude was as chirpy as ever as she made her way towards the door with determination.

Sighing half-heartedly, Yorokobi followed along like the subservient peasant he was. He wasn't sure about any of this, but when was he? It's not like he had much of a choice since he had just been dragged into this from the start, anyway. He couldn't just leave the situation unattended, not when they were specifically asking for him.

He went inside the unimaginably basic building with low expectations.

* * *

Takumi stared out at the vacant abyss of cityscape as he twirled the half empty juice bottle in his hands. It was just past 2 PM, the time of day that he considered to be the most boring and uninteresting by far. Most people hadn't gotten off of work or gotten home from school and everyone had the same goal of achieving that as soon as possible even though it was impossible to speed up the flow of time. It was disappointingly predictable every time.

He clicked his tongue in tact boredom as he stared down at the cars below; with each vehicle that passed he would take a bet as to which way it would go. The sports cars most often went and turned right at the light towards the recreational districts, or if they were red they were more likely to go towards somewhere more residential. The bulkier family cars went towards the highways where they could drive back home after a day's vacation, while the service vans went the opposite way to feed into the city to control its issues as they occurred.

The performance artist was still playing his saxophone on the street corner, something that Takumi had expected him to stop doing by now. "No, that's not it..." He thought aloud. "I doubt he was playing for five hours straight, his lungs would burst by that point. He probably took a break without me noticing." Still, the man's endurance with the music was notable.

The street performer's name was Ryu Nakamura. He worked part time at a nightclub in town and had a small following with his local band in a niche genre. He was a single child, and both of his parents were alive and well. Despite this, the man had not talked with his parents in at least two years. "No," Takumi corrected himself, "He's at least thirty five. Make it four years." Takumi knew that the distance was due to the choices in how the man lived his life. The man liked cats better than dogs, but liked most pets equally. He was subscribed to three different services that he didn't need, but he still got charged every month unwittingly due to contracts he had signed long ago.

Takumi himself only spoke with the man for a few short minutes and was too bored out of his mind to remember most of it. The line between extremely accurate deduction and implicit fact had been blurred for him for a while now; all he knew was that what he knew was the truth. It was a little ironic considering his circumstances, but there were a few perks to being called the Ultimate Con Artist by the school.

"Are you rambling to yourself again?" Piano intruded on his quiet as he stepped loudly on the carpet towards him. Takumi still wasn't sure how dress shoes could make such an obnoxious sound on normal hotel room carpet. "Don't you have anything important to be doing?"

"I was just thinking, that's all."

The twink of a baker pulled a seat out and went to step back into his desk chair. "The answer to both of my questions is 'yes,' then. Not only are you rambling, but you're daddling around when I have work to do."

With a sigh, Takumi hopped off of the bed and slowly stepped to look at Piano's computer on the desk again. "Not my fault your sister ordered you such a nice room for you to sit around in before school starts."

"I thought you said that good views didn't interest you," Piano dryly remarked.

"They don't," He deadpanned, "But sometimes the most interesting thing to do at the time doesn't interest me much. People are always doing something, whether or not they like it."

Without commenting on the eccentric man's odd statements, Piano went back to scouring the internet stubbornly. It was all incredibly uninteresting to Takumi.

The red-haired disaster twirled the juice bottle in his hands some more. "So you just got off the phone with your sister, right? What'd she have to tell you?"

"None of your concern." Piano insisted. "Aren't you just here to overlook my affairs in the game? I'd prefer it if you keep your nose out of the rest of my business until then, you mutt."

A small smirk forming on his lips, Takumi set the bottle down on a nearby bed and started to undo his simple black tie. "This isn't a game that you can step away from at any time, _monsieur,"_ He spoke lightly. This was his tone that he used with people that he didn't know that well, when he wanted to explain things, or when he wanted to be condescending. "It's the essence of your very being that gets injected into this game! That's what makes it fun, _non?"_

In this case, Takumi wanted all three of those applications.

"You don't want to underestimate my sister. Weren't you with her for a year? You should know how-"

Before Piano could continue, Takumi had snuck behind him and slithered his arms across the man's chest. "And you haven't seen her in, what, how many years? Ten? Eleven? Longer? You ought to pay some attention to my perspective, sweetie boy," His words danced and leapt from his tongue smooth and like river water. "There's a chance that you could have just told your sister to tell someone else about Velvet Soft's identity, and that would be an infraction of the rules, wouldn't it?"

"First of all," Piano squirmed in place, letting out a short grunt of discomfort at the unusual bodily intimacy. "I know that I have only been in Japan for only about a year, but if this is how you people act then I regret to inform you that me, being the American that I am, still do not identify as homosexual." He tried to shrug one of Takumi's hands away.

Takumi resisted.

"Secondly..." He let his hands back down, sensing the futility in attempting to stop this. "You and I both know that she would never do something like that just to help-"

Within a moment, Takumi crossed his hands over Piano's chest and pulled the ends of his tie from the opposite side, pulling Piano against the chair and choking him by the neck. "Of course she wouldn't. I trust her, I know what she would do... But I also know what you would do. You rely on her more than you should, that's why you're in a fancy hotel like this in the first place, you just love to mooch off of her so you can feel more important yourself, it's annoyingly obvious. It's just a matter of trying to live in her shadow."

"Still though, you're obviously too stubborn to admit that, even to yourself," He continued as he tightened his grip around the tie, causing Piano to make a light gagging noise. "Instead, you dig further into that nest of yours, it's probably the closest thing you've ever had to a parent, anyway. So one of your first thoughts if you wanted to try to be clever and sneak by my rules would be to use that trump card of yours called nepotism, doesn't that sound right? You seem awfully devoted to her, so I don't think it's that much of a stretch."

After being let go of the chokehold, Piano took a second to regain his breath before replying without any sense of chipper. "Don't _ever_ do that again, you punk... She just called to ask about what the other new students were like, and I told her about who she might have to watch out for. I didn't mention Izanami's name at all. I'm a man of pride, goddamn you."

"Hm, perhaps you're right. I didn't think it was that likely that you'd ask anyways, I was just being thorough." Takumi gave the computer another blank look before he stepped back and bounced onto the soft cushiony bed. "You're right though, I need to take your pride into consideration more often. You're more adamant about your ego than most egoists and the like that I typically see. I guess that's why I haven't gotten _completely_ tired of you, at least not yet."

"I really despise you right now, you know that?"

Takumi scoffed before taking a sip from his juice.

For the next half hour or so, Takumi had nothing to do aside from watch Piano as he worked in vain. He knew that it probably wouldn't be too hard to dig through media profiles until he found a solution, but this was Piano's fight, not his. If the man wasn't fluent enough in the realm of the web to do a task as easy as that, maybe Takumi didn't care much about him after all.

After another few minutes of meaningless searches, he spoke up again. "This is impossible. Do you have any idea how many anonymous critics there are online? It's like this place was practically created for them!"

"Congratulations, Piano, you seem to have finally discovered the internet."

He groaned in response before going on, "I don't see the point in this..." The man swirled around in his chair to look back at Takumi with a placid glare. "How about this? I'll just try to track down that Junsei fellow again, find his internet boards or whatever, and then use that. Surely if he posted something before I met him, then it wouldn't be cheating, right?"

"Hm, I dunno. Seems like a bit of a stretch. Do you have any proof that they're siblings?" Takumi tossed the now empty bottle from side to side in his hands. "For all we know, that's just part of her elaborate scheme."

"As if," Piano scoffed. "It seems clear that it would work, if nothing else he seems nosy enough that maybe one of his photos online might have her somewhere. It's odd how someone with such a weird sounding name is hard to find, but I'm sure that there's some way to get to the bottom of it if we just go through Junsei."

Not liking the sound of that, Takumi let out a small tsk. "That's it, then? Sounds a bit boring, don't you think? Almost seems unfair. And what about her talent? Do you think he posted about that?"

"Her real talent? Undoubtedly." Piano tilted his glasses back up to hug against the bridge of his nose. "And I don't much care for however boring you think this is, you cretin. Everything that I do _must_ be perfect, no matter the cost. If that cost is just not appealing to your lizard skinned brain, then I will make that sacrifice."

"You seem to be forgetting the fact that I was choking you less than an hour ago, I could do it again," Takumi added.

"Eh, my sister would just kill you anyways. We both know that."

Takumi knew that was a lie. He knew his sister well enough to know that she wouldn't, and he already knew Piano well enough to know that even he wasn't that dumb. A woman like her only came around once in a lifetime, he thought, and the majesty of someone like her would mean that it would be hard to misread her intentions. That was part of what he liked about her.

But even still, he really couldn't agree with her decisions when it came to keeping track of this brother of hers. "What is it with you and perfection, anyway?" He already knew the answer, but the way that Piano would say it could at least give him a tell to his curiosities about his sister.

"I'm not some arrogant sheeple that believes that he's perfect, only a fool would do that," Piano replied without a second thought. "I do things, and I make sure to always do them perfectly. I make sure that if I decide to do something, it's something that I can do perfectly so that I can maintain that streak. Striving for perfection is what defines a hard worker like me."

"So that's why you're a... Patissier?"

He nodded. "Yes, it's just specific enough for what I need. I got into it after I already had enough of a background in studying the sciences, so all I really needed to do was put together the right recipes to make the perfect concoction. It's easy, really, so long as you know the exact measurements."

Takumi could only force himself to listen to this meaningless babble for so long. "So you think that this is just like trying to bake a cake, is that it?"

"I suppose so, yes. It has the same meaning behind it, anyway," He conceded. "Since I've chosen to do this, I will do it perfectly so that no one else can compete against me. Wouldn't you call that honorable?"

"I'd call it nearsighted." Takumi slid the bottle with a toss from one hand to another before placing it by his side. "And a bit... Naive? No, that's not the right word. I think 'inexperienced' captures it better."

He gave a short offended gasp as if he still had any dignity by this point. "Inexperienced? Just what are you getting at?"

"If you were more experienced, you'd know what I was getting at."

Piano gave a glare to Takumi's wit.

"You don't get out much, do you? The first thing you need to do in a situation like this is to understand what your opponent is doing. Doing what's best for you could be exactly what they want, so try to also take into account what the worst situation for your opponent is instead."

"Again, what are you getting at?" The arrogant man asked skeptically. "I thought you didn't want to help me, did you just suddenly change your mind or something?"

Takumi pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket and flipped it open, paying more mind to it than the man he was talking to. "Help you out? I really don't have any bias here, my job is to make sure this match is even to the very end. That's what makes it interesting, after all. If the victor was already decided, why should I even bother to still be around here? Aside from the wonderful sushi that I hear this building has, there's nothing to keep my interest."

The patissier's sharp look only deepened, not that Takumi was bothering to pay much attention to it. "Are you intending on misguiding me so that the little sow of a human has a chance? Not very honorable of you."

"I'd watch your tone if I were you, Pianissimo." Takumi tapped on the various buttons of his phone. It was a neat little device, though it didn't provide someone like him too much entertainment. "You're the one I'm trying to help, here. I'm trying to give you a chance."

"What?"

"Don't tell anyone I told you this," Takumi folded the phone back into his pocket. "But Izanami is already taking action. If you don't do anything, I suspect she could win this game by midnight... Maybe even sundown if she's fast enough, it's a little hard to say."

"I'll ask one last time... What?" Piano's tone shifted from defensive to curious as the possibility seemed to sink in for him. "How on Earth could she do that? Isn't she the one with a disadvantage?"

"The very fact that you think that is what gives her the advantage. In reality, you having knowledge of who she really is doesn't help you much if you take the slower, safer approach. The best move for her to make is to go straight on the offensive and reveal you before you can even act, wouldn't you agree?"

Taken aback, Piano hesitantly nodded.

"Just a few hours ago," Takumi continued, "Yorokobi texted me his whereabouts. I've been having him do it when he's out with Izanami for this business, just in case. They've been going around and talking with a lot of people, you know. They're still at their most recent stop, they've been there since a little past lunchtime. What do you think that means?"

Barring his teeth and holding back the urge to curse, Piano took his breath before replying. "That's bad. That could mean that they might be getting somewhere with their investigation. Where are they right now?"

"Can't tell you." Takumi shrugged.

"Don't fuck with me now, you sissy haired twink," He said very demeaningly (and with poor taste.) "Where are they?"

Again, Takumi shrugged. "Yorokobi doesn't know. He told me that he didn't know, just some building in the city, that's all he told me. Turns out he's even worse than I thought at giving people information such as... His own location. I couldn't tell you exactly what they're doing I'm afraid, but at least you have that."

Takumi was lying through his teeth, but he felt it only fair considering how much he had already given away. Besides, he thought it would be better to test Piano rather than to guide him to victory anyway. If he really was related to his sister, then Takumi thought that he could do the rest himself.

Piano seemed to take the lie, or at least didn't call him out if he spotted it. "Some place that a country peasant like him wouldn't recognize... Just _after_ lunchtime... Trying to find someone's name..."

Within a moment, his eyes lit up and he quickly turned back around to type furiously at the computer. "No, that's not it. I don't think they could track my name down that easily. They must be doing something else, something that would force me to reveal my name."

"Compare that with the other students that are in our class, a range of thirteen people disregarding the three of us in the new class." He thought out loud, clicking and opening new tabs as his mind raced. "Judging by the time they entered and everything else we know, I'd consider that very likely."

Takumi was a little impressed by how quickly the oaf caught on, but he didn't comment on the situation.

"In other words, I need to leave this building soon and get going."

"Who do you think they're talking to, then?"

Piano swept away from his seat to give him a clear look of the screen. "Of the thirteen, only two of them live in this city, and I could maybe consider another one or two that might be here for some other reason. Regardless, the fact that Yorokobi couldn't recognize where he was probably meant that he was in one of the business districts, so when you take that into account, all you're left with is..."

He gestured to the profile of a young and black haired man on the screen. "Hiroshi Nakajima, he's the newly scouted Ultimate Legal Expert. Using what's known about him online, it shouldn't be too hard to guess his whereabouts right now. If I were Izanami, I'd say he could be a valuable asset. She knows Japanese law better than I do, and this person certainly does. She could put in a point where either I confess my name or get arrested by the police out of nowhere."

"So you think that it would be best for you to go there right now?"

Piano stared deeply at Takumi. "Most certainly, didn't I just say that?"

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTES: That marks the end of this second chapter. Congratulations! There was a bit of a shift between places here, and I almost considered splitting this whole thing into two parts, but I think this worked a bit better in the end. The scene with Takumi and Piano has been one of my favorite to write so far... I think I might enjoy writing Takumi a little bit too much.

Next chapter probably won't come out quite as fast, as I'm starting to get to where I actually am in writing this. The next one will complete a lot of this current arc though, so I'll try to not make the wait too unbearable. Just keep in mind that I want to have a little bit of a backlog so that it's easier for me to change and edit things later on.


	3. Chapter 3: Night of Fire

Something about the world around him had always rubbed Piano the wrong way. At its core, the world was a place of competition. Predators would hunt their prey, and the job of the prey was to last long enough to become the hunter.

It wasn't this fact that got him. What made him obsess was the people who seemed to ignore these basic rules of life. Cheaters who used nepotism to succeed were one thing, but there was a breed of person that tried to destroy the game altogether. The charities, smiles and waves, everything about that toxic and naive kindness seemed as if it was attempting to directly discredit him and everything that he had accomplished.

What didn't help was that these were the people society praised and used as a scapegoat to try to excuse themselves from their own diabolical actions. More times than he could count, he was forced to humiliate himself just for the sake of maintaining a false image. All the doors he opened, all the old ladies he had to help walk across the street, all the cupcake charities, all the positive press- it all went against who he was.

"If I had it my way," He went on, "People would just do away with all of the false kindness so that everyone could compete on an equal playing field."

The small four year old girl looked up at him from the floor. "You're weird." She began to pick her nose.

"Come on sweetie, your daddy's not here. Let's look for him somewhere else." Her mother went to pick her up with heft as she gave a judging glare to Piano. "And away from this creepy American."

Piano's eyes scrunched up in frustration. "See? This is exactly what I was talking about! As soon as anyone speaks the truth around here, this happens."

The mother and her daughter were already long gone.

"Come on now, you sour sport," Takumi cheered as he sat improperly in a waiting room chair. "If everyone spoke the truth, then we wouldn't be getting to have fun with this game, right?"

Piano bit his lip and didn't reply, he somehow managed to pride himself on knowing when to not talk, despite the fact that he was actually rather terrible at it.

The room itself was rather dull, something he had expected from a law firm of all things. In the corner were a few windows giving natural light from the city and on either side was a quaint and completely uninteresting potted plant. The walls, carpets, and floors were all so bland and beige that Piano couldn't even be bothered to recall their colors.

"I just want to speak with someone who actually works here, don't get sassy with me at a time like this, Takumi." While talking, he looked up at the security cameras in the room. He wasn't surprised to see one in a place with public access, but he made a mental note to be careful about what he said in the room.

Piano was still annoyed that the man had insisted on coming along, but there wasn't much he could do. "Aw, what, are you just mad that they don't want to see you without an appointment? Besides, you've been talking to the people that work here for a while."

"Not the important people, I want the ones that actually do work." Piano remarked as he sat up from his chair, looking towards the glaring lights of the windows with a squint. "I don't hold respect for the peddlers. They might work hard, but it's all useless if they're replaceable. They're meaningless to me."

"Y'know..." Takumi pulled a wrapped bar of chocolate out of his jacket pocket, looking at it with contemplation. "That girl was right. You _are_ pretty weird."

He shot a glare back at him.

"Uh, I mean, he kind of has a point. I don't see many people named 'Piano,' at least not where I'm from." Quickly darting over to look, Piano saw Yorokobi exiting from the hall where he knew Izanami and Hiroshi would be. "Not to be rude or anything!"

Piano bolted to the brewer and gave him a dirty look before trying to peer behind him. "Where is she!? Where's the bitch!?"

Yorokobi, clearly taken off guard, stumbled out a response. "Okay, uh, first of all that's pretty derogatory-"

Piano pushed him aside before he could finish and shouted down the hall. "Come out here, you waste of space! I'll destroy your family bloodline!"

"I'd actually greatly appreciate that." Izanami stepped out from behind one of the doors, a professional looking young man following her behind with a confused look. Piano recognized him as Hiroshi. "My dad isn't that good a person, he's sort of like you in that sense." She was holding a folder of sorts in her hands.

Backing away, he gave a glare to the woman. "Well, aren't you such a smooth talker? I'm sure the boys at the school are gonna love an attitude like _that_."

"Again, your words are rather derogatory," She deadpanned as she stepped beside Piano to get into the waiting room.

Yorokobi added in, "He does seem to have a bad habit of doing that."

"Bah! Doesn't matter!" He erupted. "I managed to find you here, didn't I? I knew that you were going to be here, didn't I? Let's focus on the task at hand, you miserable pond scum."

Izanami stopped where she was and spun on her heels to gaze at Piano's lanky and snarling figure. He returned a glare, pursing his lips with contemption. "Well? I'm on top of my game, you know. What do you have in that folder, wretch?" He -mocked.

"Hey, uh," Yorokobi attempted in vain to diffuse the situation from the sidelines. "Maybe we shouldn't try to make a scene in a place like this. I'm sure people are trying to go home for the day, so maybe we should just let them get to their thing!"

Takumi spoke up after munching at his candy bar. "No, no. Let them get to it, Yorokobi. This is the final act of the game." He gestured the bar lightly in their direction. "I've been trying to make a fair fight this whole time, this is where we see who's more fit intellectually to be here."

Keeping quiet, Izanami held the folder by her side.

Taking note of her reaction, Piano swept his gaze to notice that Hiroshi had still stayed silent and that the man wasn't doing anything either. "Hm, so I suppose this is what happens when she gets to you first, then." Piano muttered.

"Very well! I shalln't need such a distraction to win this battle of wits, after all." Swaying lightly on his feet, he stepped closer to Izanami. "I know that you're probably keeping quiet to try to make me slip up, right? Is that your goal? What a pathetic plan." Before going on, he made a short glance to Takumi. "Well that doesn't bother me. I also know that your main goal in coming here was that you would do something that would make me have to reveal my name, right?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny." She stated bluntly.

Piano let out a scoff of amusement and gained a light grin. "So if that were the case, then I would say that the most likely outcome is that you're filing some sort of lawsuit based around a case of sexual assault." He glanced quickly and Hiroshi, trying to gauge his reaction to see if that was even a thing in the country, but all he got was a confused look.

"When you take that into consideration, then I suppose that what would happen next is there would be some sort of investigation. I'm not an expert in Japanese law, but evidence needs to be gathered for legal action. Ergo, you would need my name, and so would everyone else. Judging by the fact that we're all Hope's Peak students, I'd think this could gather a lot of attention. The claims wouldn't even need to be correct, you would pressure me into being investigated by the authorities and the general population."

Calmly shrugging off his worries, Piano continued daintily. "Ah, but of course, that isn't going to work. In order to do that, you would need to reveal your own name to the authorities. And in that case, it's safe to say that it would wind up being public, so all I need is to call you out and then I will win this game!"

"But I can always make an anonymous report," She went on without hesitation, "I'd think that would be the best thing for me to do, right?"

"Wrong." Piano tilted up his glasses like an edgy villain. "You've just told me that, which means that you obviously aren't planning on baiting me into saying your name and breaking the rules, right? That can only mean that whatever is in that folder already has your name printed on it, and as soon as it goes into effect, I'm going to win."

Izanami gave a deathly look as she narrowed her eyes. Her breath seemed to draw cold as she continued to listen to the rambling man. "Isn't that a bit presumptuous? Isn't it more likely that something else is going on?"

"No, most certainly not." Piano's hands came to ruffle through his hair, leaving strands of black that flickered across his pale face. "Now that I've come to this place, I'm certain of my victory."

Hiroshi seemed like he wanted to speak up, but Yorokobi said something before he could. "But you're not sure if what she's filing is against you or not, aren't you?" He spoke suddenly and impulsively.

Piano took a gasp and looked at him with surprise before turning back to Takumi. "Hey, I thought you referees weren't supposed to interfere."

Takumi said nothing and intentionally took a bite of his chocolate to seem even more like an asshole.

"Not quite. Takumi helped you and that's how you knew to come here, right?" The mild mannered man spoke. "That's what I was doing. I just told you something that could be true to try to make the game more fair. Or, I guess Takumi would call it... 'Fun,' in his case."

Bearing his teeth, Piano glared back at Izanami. "Well, which is it then? Are you trying to attack me directly, or go against someone else and have me get hit in the process."

Hiroshi tried to say something, but he got ignored again.

"I intend to win, that's all."

He let out another short grunt. "Damn you and your one-liners!"

":D"

Close to snarling, Piano took a short and clear breath to try to compose himself. "I don't have time for you, spoiled brat. This is important, please take this seriously!"

":D"

Everything stopped. Yorokobi watched in anticipation. Takumi ate his chocolate. Hiroshi still couldn't get a word in. Izanami kept doing that :D thing. Piano stopped in a desperate attempt to calm the situation.

"Okay then, so I see that you're using this as an attempt to distract and enrage me." His tone was unusually cool, he would have stopped at nothing to try to achieve the state of perfection that he was destined for. "I see what you're doing, Izanami. It shalln't work, not on the likes of me." A snarky smile crossed his lips.

":D"

Chuckling to himself with contentment, Piano lightly swayed around the room with sudden enlightenment. "I suppose that's all I was missing, wasn't it? Composure! Of course!" His words rang out in the room like music to his ears. Sometimes he felt as if his voice was truly blessed. "I'm sure of my own success at all times, I just need to act like it. Someone like me, an heir to the throne of power, needs to keep _composure._ This was all just one learning experience for me!"

":D"

He stopped in place and paused to dramatically laugh at her attempts at trickery. He had seen the solution to all of his problems, and he knew that nothing she could do would change that. "Oh please, you can stop with all of that now, _dear_." Using that word made him sound more like Takumi than he would have liked, but he figured it would work nonetheless.

Maybe after all of this, he thought, he could try to find ways to train himself to be a better people's person. Takumi was a nitwit, but the man clearly had an understanding of what made people tick. Perhaps if he dedicated himself to that goal, he truly could be the amazing man that he was supposed to be!

":D"

"Nice try, that won't work on me anymore." He shook his head dismissively. "I've seen the light! I know just what to do! I don't think there's any possible way that you can win at this point, so I'll call checkmate right here and now!"

":D"

Piano shrugged. "Please, this is all too easy. All that I need to do is just get Junsei involved in this whole mess. That should fix everything. If you file a report against me I'll get a lawyer from my sister to try to say that he did it, and even if he didn't, it'll give him the chance to confess about who you really are."

"..." Izanami didn't reply to those words with an inconceivable mess, she seemed to take them to heart. Her lips pursed as she stared into Piano's eyes with a tight look.

"If you don't file against me, but file against someone else, I can chime in as an anonymous informant and bring his name up that way. The papers are already written, so it's not like you can stop it all now, right? I've won! As long as I can get your brother to appear in this report somewhere, he'll tell everyone-"

"I win," She interrupted without hesitation.

Taking a long moment to blink, Piano took a moment before replying. "What?"

"I win. Didn't I say what my intent was? I said I was going to win, and then I did."

Squinting, he questioned her. "What do you mean? I'm pretty sure it's clear that no matter what you do, I'm winning here. I can reveal your name first using your brother!"

"Maybe so, but I still win this match," She went on, "Because you broke a rule. Someone who does that deserves to be punished and lose the game, right?"

"Broke a rule? I never cheated! The hell are you going on about!?"

Izanami didn't crack her poker face, and stoically glanced towards Hiroshi. "He just said that Junsei Ino is my brother, did you know that?"

He shook his head no.

"Which means that Piano just revealed something that he shouldn't have." She gave a cold glance to Takumi. "That means that you'll reveal his name, right?"

As Takumi agonizingly chewed his candy, Piano interrupted with sudden panic. "My name!? There's no way that he could know my name! What's going on here!?"

"Your sister isn't as protective of you as you think, Pinny." Takumi chimed after swallowing. "Izanami already messaged me in private about what to do if you happened to break that rule, and I think it was a reasonable suggestion. I've actually known your real name since this morning, all I had to do was tell your sis about the game's rules," He added nonchalantly.

Yorokobi did not say anything since he's a wuss, but he was still here and in this scene.

"So basically, as long as you break a rule, I still win." She concluded.

"But I didn't break any rules!" He insisted. "Back me up here!" His vision turned over to Takumi with growing alarm.

Takumi, once again, took an agonizingly long pause before replying. "I think I can kinda see where she's coming from, but it might be a bit of a stretch to say that you leaked who she was just because you confirmed her brother." He made thinking noises before glancing to inquire more. "Care to tell me your argument?"

"I think you summed it up quite nicely." Not seeming to take much note of the situation, she swayed the closed file in her hand lightly. "I am, in essence, saying that because you tried to say that Junsei is my brother, you indirectly revealed to Hiroshi over here what you shouldn't have."

"I have several objections!" Piano exclaimed. "First of all, none of this is even public! How can anyone know it's you!? I'm sure he already knew, anyway!"

Hiroshi tried to open his mouth, but Izanami got to it first. "You think he wouldn't tell anyone about the crazy 'piano man' that screamed in a waiting room? I'd tell someone about a story like that."

"Still though," Piano stammered, "it's not as if you share any last names or anything! How could someone know!?"

"Junsei's father adopted me when I was around seven years old to try to gain publicity. My likeness isn't really around that much, but it shouldn't be too hard to find my name if you dig back far enough, right? The only issue would be proving how I, the person before you, relate to that whole mess. I'd say that-"

Takumi swallowed his third to last bite of the candy. "I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to give you a 'no' on that. He never _actually_ stated directly that Junsei was your brother," He explained, "I think that puts things in his favor, really. You're the one that admitted it. Him saying he would get your brother involved and him saying that he'd bring Junsei in were entirely different occasions."

He leaned back in his seat, sighing lightly with a small pout. "Such a shame, too. I liked what you had going on, but now that you've confirmed that, your plan basically just backfired. It was fun while it lasted, I guess, but I can't think of any way to make this any less predictable..."

Izanami froze in place, her features slowly curled in awe at what she had just heard. Her legs seemed to shake and tremble before she fell down to her knees in oddly dramatic motion. The rebellious glaze in her eyes glossed over as she stared deeper at the uninteresting carpet.

It seemed that despair had gotten her, Piano figured.

Piano's lips formed a smile, a victorious smirk of power as a low rumbling of laughter started to come from his lips. "Really...? Really...? Is that really it!?" Without warning, he uproared into a lunatic's chuckling, barely able to contain himself as his life force echoed throughout the room with a terrifying presence. "The damn bitch ruined the whole thing for herself! She took a gamble and she lost! I knew I was blessed!"

"I'm truly blessed, after all." His tone quieted as he craned down to gloat near her face. "If you got my name public, it would be bad for me... But I have a knack for getting out of things alive! It's because of how blessed my entire being is, that's the power of a good blood line, after all."

Yorokobi tried to speak up for once, a crossed look forming on his face. "Hey, that's not very nice. You don't have to be so rude about this."

"Oh please," Piano couldn't help but giggle at the words he was hearing. "Now I can let the whole world know who Izanami Yawarakai really is..." His shambling and wretched hand reached out to gently paw at her shoulder. "This is what failure tastes like, remember it well, pond scum."

Silence filled the room. No one else in the room had the energy to talk, and Piano wanted to enjoy this moment for as long as he could. Even if she somehow found a way to stop the report that she was filing already, her name would still be there. There wasn't a single way that he could lose.

Thanks to the long gap in the conversation between lunatics, the seemingly sane Hiroshi finally got a chance to speak up. His words were somewhat meek, intimidated by the insanity he had just witnessed. "Wait... So 'Velvet Soft' is just Izanami Yawarakai then?"

"Huh? Yeah, of course she is, you-" Piano stopped himself. Something was wrong.

He jolted up and looked straight at the confused boy with wide and rampant eyes. "What the hell do you mean!? Why would you ask that!? Don't tell me you didn't already know! You had to have!"

A smile started to form on Izanami's lips; it was a specific sort of grin. Piano recognized it as the type of smile that someone only showed when certain of victory. A smile like that was to be feared.

"I know I said 'I win' earlier, so I guess I have to confess that I hadn't won yet, but... I've certainly won now." Everything about her had suddenly flipped in the blink of an eye, so fast that it was worrying to Piano. She was still on the floor, but her sudden rigid stance gleamed far more confidence than he could ever have expected... And that damned smile would infuriate him for the rest of his life. "I don't think I could have hoped for this to have gone better."

"What." Piano had nothing else to say. It wasn't even a question, all he had was a mild exclamation.

Izanami was more than happy to explain. "This was the only way I could win, so I took it. There was no way that I was going to find your name by searching online before you did, so I had to go onto the offensive and call you right towards me. I'd say I did that pretty well, really."

"It all started just this morning. Without even being told, I knew that Takumi would have to have some sort of way of tracking Yorokobi's movements so that he could try to monitor the game as best as possible. I used that to my advantage, since I knew that Takumi wanted this game to be as even as he could make it. If he thought I was at more of an advantage than I really was, then he would probably give you a hint to try to find out what I was doing."

"So, I found some eight random people that might seem interesting, and then last but certainly not least, Hiroshi. I wanted Hiroshi to be last since the others were just buffers to try to make it less obvious what I was doing, at least from Takumi's point of view. If I went to where Hiroshi was and spent more time there than the other places, Takumi would probably assume that I was getting somewhere. I needed that since I needed Takumi to lure Piano right to me."

"Especially since I knew that if it weren't for that, Piano might have beaten me. I had to edit a few wiki pages before leaving home, but I figured that would only buy me a few hours at most. But by using this entire scene as a distraction, I'd only run the risk of a few hours of daylight that Piano would have to find me. My first name is associated with folk tales, and my last name is also another word, so I figured that a foreigner like him could have troubles. He'd need more than just the first half of the day to find me. After that, you would find out where I was, and I would win the game by tricking both you and Takumi into thinking that you already won."

Piano's breath caught in his throat. Had his chest ever felt that tight before? "Wh-what? No, that's impossible!" His skin slicked with a glistening sweat as his hands started to shake. "You're just bluffing, there's no way you could do something like that. Not a miserable cretin like you!" He screamed in desperation.

"Aw, what? You look like you're starting to sweat." She smeared her words with joyous intent. "Is something the matter?"

Not taking to the mocking of his dignity very well, his stress only grew. "No, you're just trying to get me to admit defeat as a last ditch effort. Your name is still written down in the file, you won't have any chance to undo that!"

Hiroshi seemed to want to say something, but he kept silent.

"Oh?" She scoffed to herself with smug amusement as she held the file up in her hand. "I said I wrote my name down? I don't think I ever said that. Shouldn't it be obvious by now what I put in here?"

Her lithe fingers pulled down the string keeping it shut as Piano swallowed his breath. After a short moment of Izanami taking in all of the miserable expressions on his face, she started to turn it over. "Whatever's in here is going to be public, I guess. You're right, not much I can do about that."

Piles of paper fell from the folder and spread all across the ground in front of her, painting the ground in a sea of white. All of the papers were white; nothing had been written on them. She then dropped the folder onto the ground next to the piles.

"I told you I was going to win numerous times, didn't I? I knew what you were thinking before you even did." With a calm attitude, she stood back up. "I think it's time to admit defeat, wouldn't you agree? I suppose you'll have to say goodbye to the name 'Piano.'"

Takumi swallowed the last bite of his chocolate bar with a slowly forming smile. "Well... I gotta say, this has been even more worth it than I thought it would be. To think that she wouldn't only just think of her opponent, but even use me as a pawn? That's absolutely brilliant." He looked over to Piano with enthusiasm. "You have to admit, that was rather breathtaking."

"... But..." Everything in Pianos soul was trembling. "Hiroshi hasn't leaked her name to the public yet, right? So..."

Takumi chimed in before Hiroshi could say anything. "Eh, do you really wanna play that game? Seems like just prolonging the inevitable. I feel like it's pretty clear who won... Besides, you weren't allowed to leak her name and you did, doesn't that seem like a pretty big rule infraction to you?"

He balled up the candy wrapped and threw it into the nearest garbage can. "Tell you what, I'll even just say your name right now so that you can get that bandage ripped off real fast. How's that sound, eh?"

Bones clattering and shaking, the lanky man fell to his knees before Takumi. "Wait, no! Please! Think of what you're doing!" His words echoed and slathered without restraint in a fit of pure emotion. "You can't do this! Do you have any idea what my sister would do to you!?"

Not seeming very invested in the display, Takumi stretched out his arms behind him. Sitting like that for so long would be tiring for anyone, so he needed a stretch. "Your sister won't be happy, sure, but she's a woman of pride. I explained the situation to her, and she figures that if you reveal your full name as part of a gamble, then it's your fault in the end. I'm inclined to agree."

"No? What, no! Please!" Desperation strung his voice as he shifted to look back to Izanami, practically dropping on the ground in the process. "You don't understand how important this is to us! Call off the game now, get him to stop! I don't even know what she'll do to me!" His voice cracked and welled with pure and unequaled fright.

"Hey, Izanami? Maybe we should take it easy on the guy. This seems pretty stressful, I don't want this to get dangerous," Yorokobi tried to add.

Calmly strutting over, Izanami held her wide smirk as she crouched down to sneer at him like he was nothing more than a whining child. "This is what failure tastes like," She said without remorse. "Remember it well, _pond scum._"

Nearing the point of hyperventilation, Piano's fingers tore at the carpet beneath him with painful force. "No, this can't happen...! I took too much of a risk, but I'm supposed to be-!"

"Perfect?" She cut in. "That's exactly why I did this to you in the first place. People like you really irritate me. Perfection doesn't exist." Just from looking at the edges of her face, Piano could sense her sadistic enjoyment. "I like to break the egos of people like you. It's fun, watching the cruel reality of their situation sink in... How do you feel, learning what it's like to know that you're as weak as the people you trample on?" Her words were collected and meticulous, bearing a polite grace that seemed to make them dance in the ears.

Piano quivered in shock and horror as he only grew more distressed. Tears pushed against the edge of his eyes and started to drip to the nose of his glasses like wildfire. "N-no, really! You don't get it! I worked for so much, you don't know what this is going to do to me!"

"I was taken from my family when I was only four!" He pathetically squealed out. "The orphanage I was at groomed us for eliteness, I manifested my destiny by staying on top! I needed to be the one better than everyone else, that was the role I was born into! If my sister finds out about this, she'll-"

"Ethan Edwards Emmons," Takumi added lightly.

It was enough to freeze Piano's entire being.

"His name is Ethan Edwards Emmons, that's all I have to say and reveal." He clarified.

Left as a broken mess on the floor, Piano, or Ethan as people would probably address him now, was left without words as the reality sunk in. He had nothing left at this point, and it was all because of Izanami. Just knowing that fact alone was torture.

"Welp," Takumi hopped out of his seat. "That was a good show, I'll definitely keep in touch with you, Izanami." He gave a short wink before he started walking out of the room. "Good game! Definitely kept me invested!"

Standing in the doorway, he tilted a curious glance to her. "Now I know who I should keep an eye on. Thanks for the head start, love." With those cryptic words out of the way, he left.

Izanami had already moved back up to where Yorokobi was. The smugness in her air had gone, and been replaced by her calm and almost eerie deadpan tone. "I'm leaving now, I suppose I'll see you again once the classes start soon."

"Wait, you're not even phased by everything that Piano's going through?" Yorokobi muttered in disbelief. "He looks like he's in shambles."

"His name's Ethan now, I won the right to call him that." Turning around, she glanced back down at him one last time. "And no, I don't really. He definitely seems like the type of man who deserved it."

Izanami walked out after that, and it didn't take Yorokobi long to follow. Neither of them spoke a single word to Piano.

Now, it was only Ethan, his crumbled hopes and dreams, the emptiness of his soul, and Hiroshi.

With no one around to interrupt him, Hiroshi could finally speak. "Mr. Emmons, you have the most terrible understanding of Japanese law that I've ever seen."

* * *

And again, thank you for taking the time to enjoy this! I'm sorry that this took so long to update, but I had some pretty messy experiences with college (still am really, only able to post this because of a backlog.) Next update might take a little bit again, but at least now we have a definitive conclusion of some sorts until then, right? Be sure to leave a comment or even follow if you're so inclined.

And again, here is a discord link of the server for this story for those interested: /wcVvfKp


	4. Chapter 4: Killing my Love

When seven years old, Izanami Yawarakai was taken away from her biological father by the authorities. Too naive to fully understand what was going on, the child protection workers did their best to try to accommodate her to what life would be like- or, at least, they would have liked to.

Sadly for all participants involved, the planet moves just fast enough that no one can do what they want. The workers had other jobs to do, so Izanami was bestowed to a small foster home ran by an elderly couple until she could be adopted by someone who would take better care of her. It was a kind place, if a little small, but it would have to do. The orphanage system in Japan was so disturbed anyway that they felt it would be better to have her somewhere that could act as a family if need be.

This was not the case however, as she only woke and slept in that crowded apartment for two months before being officially adopted by the washed up writer known as Motoichi Ino.

He was known for his numerous successful series of horror and suspense stories to the public, despite his shady reputation to those who knew him in person. As time went on, this reputation worsened and people started reading the "new blood" in the market. To try to avoid losing his relevance, Motoichi turned to making terrible parodies of his enemy's stories that everyone had universally hated.

As a somewhat questionable decision, he adopted Izanami as a means to try to restore his public image with the press that adopting a child would give him. He considered getting one of those fancy abandoned African children he read about in the news, but it would have been too much effort. Instead, he just found the shadiest place he could and picked the first child that happened to be closest to him. This was how he found Izanami.

Never having lived in such a nice home before, she felt a joyous wonder at being able to witness people eating something other than packaged ramen more than two nights in a row. She had never had a lawn with her old father, so there was something truly new and enticing about being able to roll in the grass and feel the blades roll across her soft cheeks. Everything about the upper class income she was around made her feel special and the world felt as fresh as the constant clean laundry she now had access to.

The Ino family was a small one. Motoichi had only one wife who had left him, so all he was left with was his son, Junsei Ino, who was about the same age as his new sister. The two siblings rarely talked to each other at first, but the little girl was content with playing with the toys that he, the boy the same age as her, had already grown out of.

She didn't speak much to her new brother mostly due to her social awkwardness and reclusive nature at the time, but he ended up being far more cautious of her. From the very start, Junsei felt attacked by her presence and felt his relationship with his father threatened.

"Why did you have to pick a girl to live with us?" He'd whine when he was alone with his daddy.

Motoichi would just shrug and dismiss him every time. "You kids don't know anything yet," He'd murmur.

Unsurprisingly, the uncertainty and tension in the two's relationship led to greater distaste for each other as they both aged. By the time they were ten, the two would regularly fight and engage in the pettiest ways. The mystique of living in a house with disposable income wore off on Izanami, and she gradually grew to be annoyed by her brother.

Everytime it went the same way. As soon as Izanami tried doing anything, Junsei would try doing it better. Sometimes she won, sometimes it was him doing the winning. More often than not Junsei had the upper hand, which gave her nothing but a hollow and wrathful feeling in her chest.

There was one exception to this: the racing games. The realistic and thrilling games that had initially captured Junsei's attention caught hers too. At first Junsei had just made his father buy it since he knew that boys were supposed to like cars since he lived in a sexist society that influenced its children to have certain arbitrary interests, but the routine pettiness had guaranteed that Izanami would give it a go next.

She was pathetic at first, even more so than Junsei, but she kept trying and training herself to be better. The routine yet dynamic curves of the roads and the logical and predictable feel of the vehicles started to click with her over time, grooving its way into her mind as she and the games became one. Within a short few weeks, she was consistently wiping the floor with Junsei and besting him at every opportunity in the game.

It was thrilling to her, totally enrapturing her very being. She had never won so much at something before, and it filled her bones with a light feeling that she hadn't known. Everyday she smiled as she thought about the tracks and their tricks, everyday she would get annoyed at someone for confusing her favorite game with a party karting game, and everyday she would play against Junsei and analyze every single movement to become the best that she could be.

When she was twelve and fully in this craze of hers, she went to a local tournament to try to prove her own skill to the world. She felt proud of what she could do and felt true worth in her ability to stand up for herself in that virtual world. On the outside she was powerless and frail, but her skills on the track made her feel different like a drug beyond any pharmocologist's conception.

She placed second to last in the tournament rankings after just a single afternoon of games and was knocked out of the bracket almost immediately. She never attended another tournament after that and felt her own essence draining out of her from the defeat. Her interest in the games plummeted and she rarely ever played them again for the next few years.

* * *

"This Junsei bastard," Takumi's friend questioned on the phone, "I think ya mentioned he was wit' youse at the party?" Her voice was as inconsistent in tone and accent as ever. He liked that about her, it made her interesting and harder to predict.

Takumi smiled to himself as he stared out at the vast cityscape that painted the night sky. "Yeah, he's the one that fessed up and said her real name with me and Ethan. Annoying bugger, but he served his use I guess." There was a part of him that was just glad that he could call Ethan by his real name now instead of some large musical instrument.

"He could always serve more use," Ratto Osore's voice reminded. It was cold and dry, eerily drawing across the voiceline like a rusty nail peeling against old metal. Still though, there was some type of odd elegance to it that Takumi couldn't deny. "And what 'bout her history before being adopted?"

"Couldn't find it." He shrugged his shoulders out of habit, though he recognized that she couldn't see him. "Everything else can be researched and inferred once you know where to look, unless you're Ethan apparently, but it seems that Motoichi just pulled a few strings and tried to cover up what he could. I hear he even bribed her biological father to stay quiet."

The woman on the phone was silent for more than a second or two before she spoke again. "Kay, how'se'bout what happened after the game crap? You dug that up, right?"

"Well, yeah, you're the one that interrupted me, sweetie." He chuckled to himself. "I'll get back to explaining her history. I was just getting to the part about her talent."

* * *

After landing in a rut of meaninglessness, Izanami had no choice but to resign herself to mediocrity and accept her inability to reach the top in a spiral of tween-age despair. She studied diligently and tried her best to avoid contact with Junsei whenever she could. This also extended to Motoichi, who almost always went on his son's side. In the end, she became reclusive from the people that were supposed to be her family.

This was until around age fourteen for her, when Motoichi had tried the same mistake again. Fed up with his fading relevance and still wanting to prove his wit to the world, the author had returned to trying to make farcical pieces that were so bad that they weren't even funny in a "so bad it's good" way. These works were the absolute worst example of any creative mind trying to create anything ever, and were even worse than his last attempt because of how stubborn and self-righteous he had grown to be with old age. In fact, the man was forced to create his own publishing company just to print the damn things.

They were so insulting that they had prompted Izanami to select it as something to write and critique as a way to stealthily spite those around her. It started with a simple essay about one of his recent works that got anonymously published by a local school paper, but it exploded so much that soon everyone knew that someone was secretly writing such reviews.

It normally wouldn't have been that big of a deal, but the fact that the two kids of that author were attending the school changed the context and made things more intense across the community. Eventually, even the local news sources were starting to pick up on the literary storm that was occuring. When she ran out of his new works to critique, she moved onto Motoichi's other and older pieces to tear into shreds.

This kept on until just a few months before Hope's Peak had scouted their newest students. Junsei had figured out that it was Izanami writing the essays while he was on a school vacation, but she was smart enough to take credit for it as soon as he had threatened her. It was a calculated risk, but one of the biggest drawbacks was Motoichi's reactions when he got home.

He expressed his frustrations in a flurry of aggression with bite in his words, the bite of a truly betrayed man. The hurricane of insults was definitely threatening to her.

"This is my reputation!"

"I can't believe you've done this!"

"I take you in and this is how you repay me!"

"Junsei never would've done this!"

There were many more thrilling quotes from his heated words.

Her throat was clenched, but she couldn't help but not feel bad about anything. Motoichi was clearly upset and it felt like he was just trying to upset her back, but Izanami didn't feel as upset as it seemed she should be. Maybe part of it was just that she never felt that close to the two of them as family members anyway, maybe part of it was the fact that her entire life resulting in being just a publicity stunt, but mostly Izanami just... Disagreed.

She felt like she should have been upset at herself like Motoichi was, she felt that she _should _have felt guilty, but she just couldn't. The books Motoichi had written trying to make fun of people were _bad. _Not just bad, _really _bad. Repetitive, moronic, built with no taste, and just flat unfunny. Izanami couldn't ignore that.

For one of the first times in her life, she raised her voice. She wasn't that shy, but she was usually pretty docile, only ever reaching a playful mood on a good day. Any form of anger or aggression from her was completely out of character at the time; it was something completely alien that she hadn't thought she could do.

Yet, there she was, yelling back in response to Motoichi's shouts. She wasn't entirely sure why, but she just _had _to. She told it all. She told him how meaningless those 'satire' books really were, how little impact they had, how much they sucked, how imperfect they were, she didn't hold a single goddamn thing back.

A low silence hung in the room after that.

Izanami was out of breath, carefully watching Motoichi like a cat provoking an already feral dog. Motoichi stared Izanami down with a heavy metallic coat of sharpness in his gaze. Junsei even, who was previously trying to hold back laughter, was intimidated by the sudden display of emotion she had shown.

"Listen here, bitch," Were the words Motoichi started with in a cold reply. "I... My writing, it's _perfect! _You have no right to criticize it, you uneducated cur. You haven't even _written _a book." It was clear there was an overlying anger to his meaning, but his composure was still, and his words were slow like a dagger twisting in the bloody wound.

Another silence came. Junsei, who had been hiding near the stairs to listen in, was just scared, having never seen either of these sides from either of these people, and was sneaking back up the stairs. Motoichi was still, eerily so, staring Izanami down in presumably hopes that she would break down and cry.

But she didn't.

She wasn't going to take shit from anyone so invested in their 'perfection.' So self-assured in their abilities that they'd be able to do anything perfectly. It took her a great deal of restraint to not just slap him right then and there. Instead, however, she had the control and courage to walk straight past Motoichi, not making eye contact as she sped towards the stairs to her room.

Luckily for her, the risk paid off. Hope's Peak scouts noticed her prolific work with the essay and admitted her to the school as the Ultimate Critic.

* * *

"That's it?" Ratto's voice questioned. "She just suddenly up and wrote a bunch of crap against that man who adopted her?"

"It's what the records all say," Takumi chimed freely as he swung himself to the other side of the lush room to grab his new bottle of juice. "There might be more to it, but I've told you all that I can infer. My best guess is that she was trying to relive the glory days of those racing games at home. Rich people are like that, y'know."

He took a sip of his drink as Ratto took a pause before answering. Through the other end, he could hear some splash of water. "Don't think of her like a rich girl. She adapted or somethin', but she's more..."

"Experienced?"

"Yeah, that, whatever... Fuck this language," She added.

Takumi chuckled to himself as he took one last look at the hotel room that he would have to be leaving soon. There was something interesting about listening to her speak Japanese. "Sure thing. I'll try looking into this myself later for you if you want, just know it could take a little bit longer."

There was another long pause. "Nah, don't bother. Just do your damn job, Takumi. I'll look into her after some errands."

He felt surprised at her decision, but didn't voice his opinion. "Yes ma'am, you know I'll be having some extra fun this year. That's all you wanted, yes?"

"One more thing," She added. "What about that Yorokobi fucker? I ain't seen you speak much about him."

"Oh, him?" He replied. "He was just a pawn for the game to work, really. There's nothing special about him, I wouldn't recommend scouting him out for anything."

* * *

Ratto Osore folded the phone and tossed it away without care. After a light sigh, she pulled herself out of the chamomile scented bath and stepped onto the mechanically warmed tiles beneath her, causing a flood of water to pour from her body and long, ever growing hair. There was something pretty about the flooding beneath her, like a storm clearing out a barren desert in minutes, but she couldn't find much to appreciate in it.

The bath was a nice experience, sure, but she felt that in some way it had been a tad lacking. "Probably just the candles," She considered as she blew them out one by one. "Too much of a damn scent, makes the place smell like a funeral home."

That wasn't a bad thing by itself, but it didn't have that dignified feel that she was searching for. She was getting closer with how she wanted to prepare her bathes in the future, but she hadn't perfected what she wanted for her dream lifestyle just yet.

After drying her limp and pale body with the closest thing to a towel befitting a majesty as graceful as herself, she slid into her messy black gown. It was torn and shattered, not to mention completely impractical for the sake of what she was doing, but she wore it anyway. It was about sending a message, she thought.

Post-wash, the enigmatic woman sauntered the halls of the crack den yet again. It was a nice place, nice enough to have a bath she was willing to use, but the scent of tacky cleaning products still lingered.

"What on Earth were these fools using their drug money on? An army of immigrant maids?" It was just one mystery of many that Ratto would never come to understand. The fact that anyone could ever say that they 'needed' something to smell nice was a contradiction itself. It was tacky after all that any of the higher ups even decided to stay in a place like this, that was their mistake.

She strutted through the empty corridors until she found the dingy room that she had kept the last man standing inside of. He was just as she left him; the redneck-looking man was handcuffed to a radiator with his hands behind his back just as she liked it.

As she expected, he already knew not to talk until she addressed him first. "What was your name again? You Alabama-folk all look alike to me."

"Desmond!" He suddenly growled back with defiance. "Desmond Wyatt, ya filthy whore!"

The change of attitude was disappointing, but not surprising. She narrowed her pale green eyes and stared him down with intensity. "You will soon learn to regret saying such things. Consider yourself blessed by the gods that my men decided to leave you alone while I was gone. I'd highly recommend that you tell me what I wanted you to tell me before I took a bath." Her breath was cold and ominous, though inside she was just thankful that she could be fluently speaking English again.

With a guttural squelching of a sound, he spat in her direction only to miss pathetically. "At least tell me why you did it, ya whore! Where the hell'd you even come from, missy!?"

Humming to herself with a low tone, Ratto stepped away and peered at the desolate room. "Is this really where you let _your_ men sleep? How pitiful. I don't regret doing this at all, may as well have been a favor."

It was an oddly contradictory place. Even the beds themselves spoke against the laws of logic. By the size and shape of the frame she could tell that they were bunk beds, but they had all been cut in the center to just become... Normal beds. The blankets were all a fine purple, the fanciest of colors, and yet they were stale and stiff in a way that would scare away any sane person from ever touching it. Some part of her cringed at the sight, though she certainly felt her pride in her own standards strengthened. She could do so much better than this.

Closer to the door, she looked back to Desmond and spoke again. "I think it's fitting if I just leave you here to die slowly. How does that sound? Seems fair to me."

"Who hired you?" He grumbled in defeat. "I'm sure we could pay double... Maybe even triple."

She stopped herself and looked outside at the messy and violated hallway. There was something to admire about the sight of a good bloodbath. "I wasn't hired by anyone, but there was something that prompted me to do this if that's what you're asking."

"... Fine then," Desmond said. "Who the hell's tryna go after us? At least tell me that, you punked up bitch."

"Do you remember, about... Eleven years ago? No, twelve years ago." She turned back to gaze into the man's eyes and watch his animalistic expression mold and contort into arches of fear as she went on. "The Emmons family? Does that ring a bell?"

As soon as he understood her words, the man screeched back meaningless nonsense. Swears, apologies, screams, so much meaningless nonsense that she wouldn't bother to consider. When he was done cussing his lungs out, he took a breath and kept going. Sometimes it was in agony, others in anger or regret, but it was all the same. Each second of it was orchestral perfection to her ears.

"Keep going on, then." The woman left the room with smugness, glancing back to look at him one last time. "If you scream more, maybe you'll die from dehydration faster."

She would have stayed around to watch him suffer, maybe even draw his blood if she didn't just get out of the bath, but she had a job to do. It was that determination that defined her; to her, achieving her goals had consumed her being until that drive was all that was left. It was how humans were meant to be.

* * *

And that's the end of our shortest update yet! I'm sorry that it took so long to get here, my winter was really chaotic. I fell out of my groove a little bit because of that, but I can try to get more done here sooner rather than later! This chapter was a little all over the place, but good rewards come in due time~


	5. Chapter 5: Make up Your Mind

"hewwo mistew?" vevlet soft askded " how r u?"

The grungy and edgy looking man peered down at her with a tired scowl. "Go away, Izanami. No one's paying attention to your little stunt anymore."

She stepped up closer to him on the stairs, aggressively making her presence known. "D: gimme attenshun!1!"

He took a step up, now glancing away from her. "Nobody cares. The whole thing's stupid at this point, dumbass." After demeaning her existence, he stomped away.

As the sounds of his footsteps faded into the story above, Izanami let out a deep sigh. With nothing to do for the rest of the evening, she sat down on the stairs and stared wistfully at the exotic walls around her.

The walls themselves were actually pretty bland, but there were a large variety of paintings, trophies, and all sorts of things in display cases nailed around the place. Their existence was a little tiring to her, and she couldn't help but feel that it came off as a tad snobbish, but there wasn't anything else for her to do after her classes aside from loitering.

There were a few after school activities and clubs that were being offered, but the actual size of the school itself was small enough that there weren't too many options, or at least none that actually appealed to her. Adding to this trouble she, of course, would never think of doing something as preposterous as starting her own club, or even having an accursed "friend" of any variety.

Initially she planned to spend her free time hunting down the people like Piano that bothered her most, but ever since the start of the school year she found herself most often returning to her dorm room after half an hour of non eventful events.

"Aw, what?" Takumi's voice mocked as he marched his way down the stairs, passing her on the way down. "Is being the magical miracle girl princess that you want to be not going well? Never would have seen _that_ coming," he remarked with overflowing sarcasm.

"And there goes Arata Abe, Ultimate Graffiti Artist." She replied, not bothering to look up at the man. "That makes the last person in this new class that I've tried confronting."

Swooping from beside Izanami, he took the fedora off of her head and twirled it in his hand. This clearly irritated her, but he didn't seem to care. "I guess you really peaked with the man named after a large musical instrument, huh? Speaking of, have you seen him around lately? I've only caught glimpses of the guy since-"

"I want to meet Ethan's sister," she interrupted.

Stopping on his heels and turning to peer at her with curved and curious eyes, he brought on a small smile and flicked her hat back onto her head. "Oh really now? Why's that?"

Not wanting to look at Takumi even still, she glared over down one side of the hallway and thought out loud. "Do I need much of a reason? Ethan said that his sister was going to come after me, didn't he? Naturally I'd want to ensure my safety and level things out."

Chuckling to himself, the shiny lad stepped over and leaned against the wall opposing Izanami. "For someone who tried to say they were the Ultimate Mary Sue, you're a terrible liar at times." He dug his hands into his jacket pockets as he bent down to look at her with a smearing look. "You can't hide this stuff from someone like me. I know what motivates you, and I know exactly what you think when you talk like that."

Izanami said nothing.

Takumi straightened his posture and dropped the smile. "You're chasing those thrills again. The satisfaction of being on top. In the end, you're just like all those other meaningless go-getters, aren't you?" He deadpanned, abandoning the cocky attitude in exchange for a sudden mark of serious tone.

"What's your point?" She murmured back. "What's so wrong with having a drive?"

"Nothing, technically, but it makes it easier to guess what you're going to do next once you can guess what that drive _is._" He said as he started to creep closer to her. "You like bringing down people that think they're powerful so that you can feel better in the process. You're still young, but you already have a taste and you're getting addicted faster than you can manage."

"Do you know what that tells me?" He stopped barely a foot away from her and glared down with a blank look. "It tells me that you want to try to do something similar to what you did to Ethan... To her. You figure someone like that has got to have pride out their ass, and you just want to take a bite out of it, don't you?"

Slowly, Izanami looked back up with pale eyes. "Why are you asking me if I want to eat some strange lady's ass?"

Unamused at first, Takumi stuck his brows together with strict motion. His entire face was stoic and cold before it all melted again into a whirl of emotions. "Ooh, ha~! I see what you did there, you clever girl!" An annoying glitter fell out of his pockets and flew into the air as he raised his hands for applause. "Bravo! Brilliant! What sass!"

"Is that so?" She blankly said.

The sudden glitter slowly floated to the ground as an awkward silence passed. "Well now, you really don't like to give me much to work with here, do you? This is like trying to appease a moody twelve year old."

"Is that so?" She repeated, this time with a twinge of a smile on her lips.

Takumi sighed. "Doesn't matter either way, I suppose. This actually makes my job easier. You want to meet his sister, right?"

"That's literally what I just told you, not sure why you'd think I could suddenly change my mind on that."

With a shrug, Takumi twirled on his heel to face away from her before starting to pace. "Since that's the case, dearie, I think I know how to arrange something like that. In fact, it should be rather effortless on my end! She's a little busy right now, but you're fine with waiting a little bit, aren't you?"

Izanami's face shifted. "You know, you can just give a simple answer like 'yeah sure,' and it would take at least a third of the time. And don't call me dearie."

"Eh, who really cares? This is Hope's Peak, so they might arrest us if we don't sound snooty enough," he mused aloud. "Does it really matter?" He turned to look at her again.

"Just get on with it," she calmly demanded. "I don't want to sit here listening to you all day. When can you get me to meet her?"

Instantly, he came to a stop and thought to himself for a few seconds. After seeming to think over something, he replied. "Well, it might be a few months at the soonest. She's a little busy right now, you know how it is..."

Devilishly, he clicked his tongue. "But hey now, this doesn't seem fair if I just get you what you wanted. Would you mind doing me a favor first?"

"Yes, I would mind."

"Aw, that's no fun!" He murmured loudly in a way that made no attempts to hide itself. "Too bad for you, I suppose. It's more of a demand than anything else, I suppose. Like a deal that of sorts!"

Izanami raised a brow. "Aren't deals supposed to be decided on by both parties?"

Somehow content with this answer, Takumi clapped his hands together. "Excellent! _Magnifique!_ I'm glad to see that you're on board! I'll expect my payment within the next month or so." His face beamed with an odd smile.

"What-?"

The joyous look twirled over his bright features as he reached into his pocket. "It's simple, dearie! You know those fancy cards that everyone up and around here should have by now?" Out from his wallet, he flipped out a single plastic card, hanging it in his fingers. It had his name, a photo, and some other miscellaneous identification. As far as Izanami knew, it was nothing more than just a normal slab of plastic with some ink on it that had been graciously called a school ID.

"Don't call me dearie," she reminded. "And what about it? They're not that important. Isn't it more of a status symbol than anything? It's just plastic."

"Maybe so, but it's plastic that people care about." Takumi tucked away the card. "These school IDs are pretty meaningful. I've already saved enough money from student discounts to buy myself about four or so candy bars. They're quite the wonderful thing."

Izanami eyed him suspiciously. "So what? You gonna make me buy you candy or something? To each their own, I guess."

He laughed. She could tell it was the type of laugh that was holding something back. "Not quite, love. You know what it's like to live around here, don't you? This entire school is based on pride and theatrics, they eat this stuff up. The headmaster wouldn't be a happy man if people fought over them too much, you know."

Again, her cerulean blue gaze reflected his visage with a perceptive glint. She took a brief moment to observe him. "So you want me to fight over them so that the headmaster gets mad? You must not like the school much."

"Hey, don't talk all high and mighty when you're still dressing yourself up like that and calling yourself a Mary Sue," he snapped back with a fair point. "Hell, you're probably more annoyed by this place than I am."

That, she thought, was not as fair as a point. "Don't even try to talk as if we're similar. You don't have the same dedication as me, I can see it in your eyes. I'm not gonna empathize with you just because you're moody."

There was a brief puff of air from Takumi's lips before his smile faded. It had seemed that his patience would only last so long. "You know what it's like being here, don't try to deny it. People like us... We're too smart for this place."

"These people... They're so proud." Swaying away from Izanami and back to the walls with a melancholic swing, his suddenly somber glaze eyed over the decorations. "It's sickening, isn't it? It's as if they think that just being alive by itself is some sort of prize. Such a pathetic way of thinking." He looked back to gauge her reaction, soon deciding to continue.

"You know that one phrase? Big fish in a little pond?" Not looking towards anything in particular anymore, he stared across some of the trophies on display. After looking either way to check for anyone listening in, he went on. "That's what it's like for us to be here. The people at this school really are just small fish when you get down to it, they just live to make the pond smaller. They feel bigger in comparison. I know you feel it too."

Izanami had been preparing herself with another snappy comeback, though those last words caught something in her. Muscles in her throat flinched before she could speak, letting only a brief murmur of a sound past.

Takumi's fleshy fingertips molded against the glass prison that held the trophies. There were all sorts of shapes and colors being distorted by the yellowish light from the windows. "I mean... just look at this stuff. They've got trophies for so much useless stuff just so that the mediocre things the students accomplish seem like more. Do I even need to list them out?"

"... No." It wasn't necessary. She had already spent a good ten minutes staring at them all, and it already annoyed her how much they stuck in her memory. There were names from upwards of twenty years ago that all had thrilling accomplishments such as "most impressive yarn collection," "best football collector," and "second place snail observation parade."

"This place really is a mockery. So damn boring..." With a small sigh, he turned around to look at Izanami again. By now, the shadowy grin on his face had returned. "These people live on this stuff. Doesn't that bother you?"

It did. She refused to admit it to someone like him, but it was obvious he already knew. If nothing else, she knew that the small moment it took her to reply would give it all away. "What's your point?"

"Ah, yes. You've always been quite direct."

"You're pretty indirect."

Takumi let off a shrug before he went on. "The ID cards are just another one of those, like the trophies right here. It's a pillar in the structure of what makes people feel important and like they belong here. There's not much real power behind them on paper, but if you have someone's card, then you hold power over them. Either they do as you say, or they're damned to admitting that they lost the card."

"So what, do you just want mine? Make me do what you want or else I become an outcast?" She said, notably not mentioning that her own personality had already done a great deal at making her less sociable in the first place.

"Oh heavens no," he shook his head daintily. "There's no point in that, dearie-"

"Don't call me dearie."

There was a short pause. "Anyway, I don't want your card. I want you to get someone else's card for me. If you do that, then I can arrange for you to meet whomever you want."

With a raised and skeptical look, Izanami wasn't sold immediately. "What? Why me? This seems horribly ineffective."

"Not quite." His voice lowered and drooped with a new tone. "You already proved yourself to be smart and cunning, so there's no going back on that. Besides, this just makes things smoother on my end. I won't keep any records of whatever we decide on, so it's less of a binding deal. I get what I want, and you get to meet this lady and then continue with your merry life. I wouldn't offer a deal that would backfire on you."

Izanami reminded herself internally that this man was literally a con artist. "... Whatever you say," she murmured. "But it's just anyone's ID card, right? Technically that would mean it'd be fine if you took mine. I don't get why you're trying to complicate this so much."

"Oh no, not at all. You misunderstand!" He pleaded with fake enthusiasm. "You see, I specifically want someone's ID card. It'd be a boring shame if I just told you to nab something, right? I'm allowed to be a little precise here."

There was another pause of hesitation. She stared back up to Takumi's chaotic gaze with steadfast determination. The distinction between the two of them only made her more annoyed that he was trying to bring her to his level. Still though, there was something of a thought lingering in her mind. She couldn't formulate it into words.

"Who is it then?"

* * *

Light filtering through the thick windows on the wall, the classroom looked about as bright and cheerful as it always did. One thing that Yorokobi appreciated about the school's architecture was the apparent appreciation for nature, though he knew that he was biased to notice those sorts of things in the first place.

Nevertheless, he felt there was something special about Hope's Peak Academy. It was in the middle of a city, and yet somehow managed to keep a touch of green. He had barely been to the city himself, but even he knew that it was something special. Everytime that he stepped through the gates of the campus, it felt like he had left modern civilization and had entered a magical kingdom of hope and tranquility.

The notion that the place was in any way tranquil had left his mind once he had seen the total for his first week's worth of homework, but he still appreciated the atmosphere. He felt that most people would probably criticize him for his willingness to enjoy just about anything. It wasn't too big of a deal if people thought less of him anyway, he enjoyed the humility. It made him feel less guilty for living with some of the privileges he already had.

Everyone else in the class already filtering out of the room left Yorokobi staring out at the scenic expanse before him with a small smile forming on his face. He was slowly shuffling his items into his bag, but it was at a calm and serene pace that almost stood in mockery of how busy the other students were. Yorokobi reached out to grab one of his pencils from his desk before noticing that someone had already beaten him to the punch, their hand already claiming it for their own.

Looking up, he saw Izanami staring back at him with a mildly chaotic smile. After a short pause for surprise, he spoke up. "Oh, uh, hey there... Haven't talked to you in a while. Need something?"

Her smirk faded away as she tossed the pencil back to him. "I wanna talk to you about something. You're probably free right now, so I'm gonna talk."

"Huh? Oh, yeah, sure." Yorokobi was too beta of a person to say no to her even if he was busy, but he didn't think it was worth the time to mention that.

Watching as the teacher left the room with their things, Izanami leaned against the desk ahead of his. "How much contact have you had with Takumi since the game we had with him and Ethan?"

A casual look on his plain and timid face, Yorokobi quickly responded. "Hm? I don't think I've talked to him much. Might have seen him in the halls a few times, but he hasn't even texted me." He gave a small, pitiful laugh for his own humility. "I guess he doesn't really need me for anything, not that I mind. To each his own, after-"

"Yeah, whatever, sure thing," She cut off, not bothering to hear his pathetic ramblings. "Has Ethan talked to you since then either? I haven't heard much about him. It's a bit of a shame really."

Again, he perked up with a useless enthusiasm. "Oh, Piano?"

"No, _Ethan,"_ she stubbornly corrected.

"Oh," he said back with a touch of awkwardness. "Well, I'm only a few doors down from him in the dorms, but I haven't seen much of him, not even around campus. I know he's still here, just doesn't get out much. I think he's mostly staying in his room, but it's not like I wanna pry or anything. I mean, that'd be kinda-"

And, again, he was interrupted. "Cool, whatever. Do you know what he actually goes out for?"

Mentally forgiving her rudeness, he thought for a moment, murmuring to himself. He zipped up his backpack fully, but didn't bother getting out of his seat yet. "I think I saw him out once or twice going into the cafeteria sometime after the dinner that they serve. Y'know, the ones on Sunday? If I had to guess, he goes there to... I dunno, bake stuff?"

"Is he even allowed to go into their kitchen to do that?" Izanami raised a skeptical brow.

With a shrug, Yorokobi let off a small scuff. "Your guess is as good as mine. I don't see why the school wouldn't let it happen since he's a patissier and all. I've been thinking of asking the staff about that sorta thing myself actually!" He started to go off on his own tangent.

"The classes this place has on chemistry and stuff are all nice." He went on, "But I feel like I really do best when I have something more concrete to work with, y'know? At least, regarding my talent. I know they probably don't want me brewing alcohol within school limits, but they'd probably be alright with doing other stuff. I've debated doing that sort of thing recently anyway, I feel like it would make people a little less skeptical of me sometimes. Besides the point though, I've been working on a few recipes that-"

"Yorokobi," Izanami interrupted yet again. "I don't think _any_ of that is anywhere near any sort of point that I'd be even remotely interested in."

The eager look in his eyes faded out as his smile lessened into the polite strain that it was usually in. "Right, yeah, sorry. Why are you asking? Have they been bugging you?"

Swaying in her spot, she paused with a hum before replying. "Odd choice of words. Takumi _did_ talk to me the other day though, so that's close enough, right? Both of them are pretty annoying anyway."

Part of Yorokobi figured that a woman like her would find just about anyone annoying, but he chucked that into the box of thoughts that he would keep to himself. "Okay, so is there an issue? Is he bothering you? I'm sure that if you just talked it out with him everything'll turn out alright."

Not seeming impressed by his merciless optimism, Izanami stared off behind him. On reflex he turned to look the same way, seeing the last other student around filing out of the classroom. Despite whatever class rules there may have been to prevent this, the two were alone.

Yorokobi wasn't actually _sure_ what the rules about being in a classroom alone were. He ruefully forgot to ask much about the few policies in all of the fuss involved with getting registered with the school and he had been so distracted by the classes to think much of it. He made a mental note to check up on some more of the rules later.

"It's not that simple," Izanami said, breaking him out of his rule-abiding trance. "This is bigger than that. It's more important than some simple little game that he wants to put us through, pretty serious this time."

He turned back to see her flat expression and felt his own face shift down. "Can't be that bad, right? If it's an issue, you can just bring it up with the headmaster."

"No, really can't." She peered at him with certainty. "It would cause too many issues. It's not like I have any proof of anything either."

"Well what is it that Takumi's doing that's so bad anyway?" Yorokobi asked.

After a short rummage, Izanami fished out her student ID card. He could barely see it, but Yorokobi could tell what it was just by looking at the snazzy black and white patterns printed on it. "You've seen these before, right?"

"Yeah, I've got one of my own buried in my wallet somewhere. Haven't seen many people talk about em', why?"

With a serious face, she tucked hers away. "Takumi's been collecting them. I'm not sure why, but I definitely know that he _is._ I don't think anyone like the headmaster would believe me though. Besides, you know how adults are, don't you? He'd probably just get caught up in so much paperwork that we'd all graduate by the time he got off of his ass."

With a timid and depressed shrug, he didn't try to argue. "Okay, yeah, that sounds pretty bad."

Tilting her gaze, Izanami questioned him. "It's a little hard to tell what motivates someone like him, but what do you think would be the _worst_ case for someone like that? He has more than a few of them, I think he's trying to get everyone's."

"Ah," Yorokobi thought to himself quickly before speaking up. "I guess... Knowing him, he might be trying to make people just dance for his amusement or something. He seems to think he knows everyone already. I don't know really, I'm not the type of guy to accuse someone of-"

"You're right," she interrupted once again, startling him. "It's probably just for some weird games he wants us to play against each other, just like the one I played with Ethan. Everything went well in that case, but it couldn't possibly be good if he kept doing it, right?"

There was something odd about how she went about saying her words, Yorokobi thought. For a brief second he was taken aback enough to analyze her movements, trying to read into her stone cold expression. Normally she spoke with such conviction, but something about what she was saying seemed forced in a way he wasn't sure he could trust.

He didn't like that feeling; That sensation of not being able to put faith in the stability of his surroundings was uncomfortable. Yet still, he made a willful decision to go along with this anyway, since he could at least trust that she was a smart woman with at least _some_ sense of morals... Even if he felt she could be a little harsh sometimes.

"So what are you planning to do about it?" He asked. There wasn't any way that someone like her had come for advice to him of all people, so he knew that she already had something up her sleeve. "I'm willing to help if you need me to," he added, already anticipating where the conversation could go.

She seemed to appreciate the consideration. "Takumi already knows me well. He can read me better than I'd like to admit, so I'm gonna need you for this."

Putting aside his own skepticism, Yorokobi couldn't help but raise a brow. "And you think I would be better for that? I dunno Izanami, I'm pretty... Plain."

"Exactly," she went on. "You're so boring that he probably won't even bother to remember what you're saying half the time."

Yorokobi felt his already weak pride shamble into pieces, but he couldn't deny the truth. He was a pretty forgettable person anyway.

* * *

NOTES: Yup, it's been a grand total of two days since my last upload and I'm already putting something new out! This is partially because I felt a little bad about how plain the last chapter was in terms of content, partially because I felt a little bad about how long my month and a half dry spell was, and partially because there's not much of a reason to hold myself back when so many people are going to be online right now anyways.

Regardless, thanks for taking the time to read and enjoy! If you've made it to this point, I'll just assume that you're invested enough to continue reading anyways. Hopefully I'll be able to make a more consistent upload schedule... At some point. I'm starting to think that I might do better with stricter deadlines anyway. (P.S. I also made the damning realization that I had been misusing some of the capitalization grammar this whole time, so I might go back and edit the other chapters at some point too.)

Also, hey, if you ARE invested, why not check out the story's discord server? /JX8Bpgc


	6. Chapter 6: When the Sun goes Down

The halls of the dorm rooms were suitably complex yet simplistic in their design, absolutely fitting for the school they were built to accommodate. There was solid practicality and efficiency in the blueprints themselves, but the overall architecture was sublime in its subtle artform. It had taken Yorokobi over a week to even notice most of the small details and touches when it came to making the place look as nice as possible.

Though Yorokobi definitely appreciated the effort and quality skill that went into the building, he had to admit that there was a certain uncanniness to being on the second floor of the men's hall. The way the dorms had been designed made it so that there would be virtually no reason for anyone but its inhabitants to go up there, and only the students that were in their graduating year would reside up there in the first place.

Sometimes the school felt like such a contradictory place. It was one of the most funded high schools in the world in terms of money spent on average for every student, but its classes were also exceptionally small compared to similar schools. Of course, only taking in students that had already finished their first year of high school already was odd enough. The end result was that the school would only ever have two small classes at once and a _lot_ of funding.

Obviously, that was putting aside all of the satellite schools and other programs that the school managed. Sometimes Yorokobi wondered about what it would have been like to be in one of those programs. Realistically, the students in those schools were the ones that would make more of an impact on the real world due to sheer numbers and practicality. The main course was more of a status symbol than anything else.

Nevertheless, none of that pondering would help him get over how weird it felt for one of the windows to be in a _slightly_ different spot than on the first floor where he slept.

"Room... 203." Yorokobi stopped in front of his target. "Takumi Kikuchi."

The door was just about the same as all the other doors in the building, though it had a different name plate in the center. The colors of the gleaning wood burned a passionate amber that even a country bumpkin like him could appreciate.

One thing he didn't appreciate though was having to knock on the door. Takumi wasn't the sort of person he'd have liked to talk with much at all, but Yorokobi always kept a promise... Especially to someone as intimidating as the dreaded creature known as "Velvet Soft." If he did just about anything wrong, he knew she might turn on him and do the ":D" thing again, and no one wanted that.

Though Yorokobi was a frail young man, his knocks were loud enough to draw Takumi out of his room. Despite it being a Sunday, he seemed notably well dressed, though it was entirely in character for what Yorokobi could tell.

"You rang?" The con artist smiled with a conniving twitch in his eyes.

"Uh," Yorokobi awkwardly stammered. "Actually, I knocked."

There was an awkward pause as Takumi continued to stare him down. "Very well then," Takumi began in an attempt to forget what he had just heard. "You're the one that wanted to meet me in the first place. Come along, I didn't get myself ready for nothing."

Going with the first step of Izanami's plan, Yorokobi followed the man inside. He took a cold breath to steel his own nerves, unsure exactly what she was hoping he would get out of this already insane situation. Why couldn't these types just settle their differences like normal people for once?

Takumi's dorm room was unsurprisingly surprising, and not in the way that Yorokobi had originally imagined. For the most part, it was a fairly normal room. The walls were a boring shade of beige and the patted down carpeting was about as basic as it could be. Aside from the decorations, the essential furniture was all just the same as in Yorokobi's dorm. The bed was off to one side, shelves on the other, and a wide desk sitting just underneath the window leading to the blank and city-lit night sky.

"What? Did you think I was gonna buy my own furniture just for a dorm room or something?" Takumi questioned, already sensing Yorokobi's confusion. "I may act pretentious but I'm not actually _that_ rich. If I were, there wouldn't be much point to my talent, would there?"

Something about that didn't quite seem right, but Yorokobi never wanted to ask about the man's talent anyway. He still couldn't get over the fact that the headmaster somehow approved a con artist getting a spot in the first place.

"Oh, sorry. I just haven't actually been invited into anyone's room here before." Looking around to avoid eye contact, Yorokobi was surprised at just _how_ plain some of the scenery was. There were occasional splotches of glitter or something extra, but a lot of it was surprisingly tame for someone like Takumi.

Though, even then, it was all odd. Yorokobi had filled his own room with piles of photographs taken from his hometown, but Takumi didn't have a single picture anywhere as far as he could tell. There weren't any unnecessary screens, amusing toys, flashy posters, or anything that Yorokobi would have assumed would be there. It felt more like an adult's work room than a teenager's bedroom.

The only tangible thing that Takumi seemed to have been collecting were books. They were of varying sizes and thickness, but they were overwhelmingly predominant in covering the shelves. It was difficult to make out exactly what any of them were, and Yorokobi was interrupted before he could take a closer look.

"Ahem," Takumi gave a light cough, bringing Yorokobi out of his admittedly rude distraction. "I'll remind you again that I'm not the one that invited you here. You're honestly pretty boring to me, so can you just get on with this so that I can go back to what I was doing?"

A little embarrassed, Yorokobi blinked towards him. "Right, yeah. I should get to it, huh?"

Takumi stared back at him with expectation. He nudged himself a little bit forwards as a gesture to get on with it.

After a very uncool pause, there was a shift in attitude. Controlling his own nerves with a calm temper, Yorokobi looked straight into Takumi's devilish and curvaceous eyes from across the room. "I know you have all of those ID cards. I want to give them back to their original owners. That's why I came here."

Blinking with a dumbfounded look, Takumi didn't seem to have expected that. Or, what Yorokobi figured more likely, he hadn't expected him to be so straightforward about his intentions. Takumi didn't seem particularly upset or annoyed though and just stared back for a solid few seconds.

Just before Yorokobi was about to crack and say something else, Takumi broke into a striking fit of rampant giggling. Laughing like a mad frog, the con artist seemed to revel momentarily in enjoyment of his plea.

There was something he didn't like about that laugh. There wasn't venom or maliciousness to it, but that only made its twisted sense of enjoyment even more uncomfortable. It wasn't the laughter of anyone trying to defend themselves or even a cocky display of one's own might. He could tell that Takumi was simply fueled by whatever happened to amuse him.

Still holding back a snicker or two, Takumi gazed back at him with rosey eyes. "Ah, I stand corrected. Maybe you're not as boring as I thought. Is this what Izanami intended for you to say, or did you just decide to play hero on your own?"

Yorokobi didn't answer that.

Lightly smirking to himself, he grabbed the newsboy cap that was by his side and flipped it over his ominous and bloody colored hair. "Alrighty, I guess you earned yourself a chance. We'll play a game for it, how about that?"

Trying not to grimace, Yorokobi balled his fists gently. "You're still going on about games? Even at a time like this?"

"Now, now..." Takumi stepped to the side and pulled out a small bag from under his bed before standing back up with grace. "I still think you take things too seriously. It's not even in a way that's any fun. You really need to work on being less... I don't know, sheepish?"

Still not replying, Yorokobi watched as he came closer. "Yes, that works. You're enough like a sheep anyway. How about we just run with that for now?"

"Can we just get this over with?"

"Fine." With a sigh, Takumi gestured to the decently sized table standing in the middle of the room. It was the only piece of furniture that Yorokobi didn't have in his room, so he was admittedly curious to see what it would be used for. "Take a seat, sheeple."

Locking his face into a serious expression, Yorokobi pulled aside a chair as Takumi did the same. There was a deck of cards resting on the table that the con artist then took into his hands.

"Tell me," Takumi spoke as he already began to shuffle, "Yorokobi, do you have any experience with card games? Any sort of poker? Solitaire...? Go Fish?"

Yorokobi nodded back. "Yeah, a lot of the customers back home liked to enjoy stuff like that. They didn't usually play for money though, my dad was never a fan of that sort of thing."

Shrugging, the con artist finished his shuffling and held the deck towards the brewer, exchanging a look with his fellow student. "Well, I don't think anyone can blame him for wanting to follow the law, right? Most of the people wanting to gamble for money in whatever tiny town you're from were probably pretty seedy anyway, since I can't imagine there's any sort of serious market for it."

"That's exactly it." Yorokobi cut the deck, taking away some section of the top so that Takumi could put the rest above it. "Still though, we had some chips behind the counter in case anyone wanted to play for fun. Every Thursday night we and some of his friends would play something. It wasn't too competitive though."

Sweeping the shuffled deck off to the side, Takumi smiled with a joyous twinkle in his eyes. "Alright then, so let's try to make this fair. I'm guessing that we've both played a lot of different types of cards, so how about we try something new? That way neither of us has an unfair advantage before we even decide who goes first."

"A new game?" Raising his brows, Yorokobi peered at the deck with a cautious interest. "How are we going to decide which one to use?"

Takumi nodded and hummed. "Yes, that is the question, isn't it?" Cradling his chin into the palm of his hand, he tilted his head askew with a wicked grin. "I'm awfully bored right now, and going through a list of games would just make this whole thing even more tiring... Why don't we just make ourselves a new game on the fly?"

His eyes lit up with surprise. "Huh? How? Can we even make sure it's fair?"

"Well, I suppose we can't..." Takumi mused. "But if it's something truly new, then it's not like either one of us can abuse it. In that case, it's just a matter of coming up with a strategy on the spot, and isn't that what a fun game is all about? If you already know the best moves to make, then it's not really a game now is it?"

Though Yorokobi couldn't deny that, he was hesitant to agree.

"How's this? Let's come up with the rules one by one, swapping between the two of us! That way we can be sure neither of us knows what we're getting into before the thick of it. I'll let you go first."

"I guess that's a good way of doing it, assuming it doesn't go on for too long," he cautiously agreed. "I think we should go with hands of five, just to keep things simple."

Without a moment's delay, Takumi smiled. "But we _won't_ be using the scoring of poker. The larger numbers are simply larger numbers, so there's no benefit to pairs or anything like that. Additionally, jacks through kings are worth eleven through thirteen in the way that you'd expect."

Yorokobi paused for a moment. He hadn't even considered something like that as a possibility. Looking up into Takumi's devilish gaze, he knew that he would have to think about his words more. "Alright, so then..." He thought of something. "How about this? Each player reveals one card from their hand, taking turns in the process."

"Ooh, spicy." His opponent seemed entertained by the idea. "It's a bit much for a single rule, but I like that, so let's keep it. If we're doing that, then I'll add on that each game only consists of one hand. So we'll draw, play, and then the game will just be over. I'd rather not we be here all day."

It was something Yorokobi couldn't argue with. "But when we both only have two cards, we'll flip over the entire deck except for another two cards, narrowing down the possibilities for what your opponent can have."

Takumi was definitely pleased with that rule, smirking like a mad hatter. "But every time that first player who went is about to reveal one of his cards, then both players have to either bet or fold and end the game, submitting what they had bet."

"Well, there's obviously a disadvantage for whoever goes second, so..." Yorokobi continued on. "Whoever the second player is determines what the win conditions are once everyone is down to two cards. Either a low hand wins or a high hand wins, and they get to decide."

"Alright, so let's recap what we have," Takumi explained. "You and I will draw five cards, and then reveal them one by one. Either one of us will go first and then we take turns, and every time that first player is about to reveal their card the both of us have to either up our bid or back down and lose. Once we're both down to two cards, then we'll reveal all of the other cards except for two. Then the second player will decide what the winning condition is. Am I right?"

Yorokobi noticed a few small changes in wording, but he could tell that it was just to make sure the game could actually be played, so he didn't bother objecting. "Alright, yeah. Do you have anything to add?"

"Y'know," Takumi crossed his legs and looked to Yorokobi with interest. "I don't think I do. I'll just say that my addition to the rules is that this is where they end. That sounds fair to me."

"The only question now is which one of us goes first, right?"

Taking a pause to think, Takumi considered his answer. "Most people would probably say that we should try to make it random, but I'll let you decide. It's _technically_ your turn, anyway. This is a pretty poorly designed game realistically speaking, so I see no reason to not make it even more messed up."

That was pretty weird logic to Yorokobi, but he wouldn't pass up the chance to decide the pace of the game. His moonlike saucer eyes vacantly looked toward Takumi as he considered his options thoroughly. The first few steps of Izanami's plan had already worked, but it wasn't like she could have anticipated this. There wasn't anything he could think of to fix the rules, so all he could do was his best.

"I'll go first," he said with confidence. "You can be the dealer. I trust you not to cheat after seeing how you were with Piano a few weeks ago."

Smiling to himself, Takumi dealt the cards out to each of them, one at a time. "I'll trust you not to cheat if you already know how I am then... Not that I think you could in the first place."

With a shrug, Yorokobi took his cards. Takumi at least had a point, he knew he couldn't cheat in a game like this. For the most part, it didn't seem like there was much strategy to it. It was basically just a glorified game of betting on whichever person drew a better hand, but there was an element of a sort of chicken gameplay element to it for whoever the second player was.

Yorokobi looked at his hand and tried to consider the implications in his head. The game didn't have too many strategies, but he'd have to come up with something. By the time he glanced up from the cards he noticed that Takumi had already been staring straight into his eyes, not even bothering to look at any of the cards.

With a gulp, Yorokobi glanced back down timidly and sorted and organized the cards in his hand. After he was finished getting them ready, he looked back up.

"Are you ready?" Takumi asked.

He nodded solemnly.

"Alright then, what are you going to bet? I know you probably won't bother, but just so you know, I don't like playing for money."

Setting his cards back down, Yorokobi twiddled his eyes between him and his opponent. With a shake to his motion, he reached his hand behind and brought out his wallet before placing his student ID card on the table. "For my first bet, I'm putting down my own ID card. I expect you to put down one of the ones that you've collected too. That's why I'm here, after all."

Restraining himself with a dull look, Takumi bent to the side and pulled something out from the small bag he had got earlier. "Well, I guess I could be cruel and bet something unrelated, but... I guess it has to be an even bet somehow." It was another student ID card that he soon placed on the table, showing it to Yorokobi.

He recognized the face. There was a grungy looking man, a borderline delinquent that was in Yorokobi's own class. His name was Arata Abe, and his talent was that of the Ultimate Graffiti Artist. "You should be grateful, you know. This is one of the better ones that I have, and he's still only in his first year here."

Yorokobi held himself back from grunting at his blatant willingness to toy with someone's life. "I'll reveal my card first."

Without taking much time to consider his options, he placed down a six of hearts. "A six. That's almost as neutral as it can get." He tucked the rest of his cards away again. "Your move, Takumi."

Not seeming the slightest bit interested in the set up, the glittering man simply gazed at his cards apathetically. The change in tone from him was confusing, yet also not surprising at the same time. At this point Yorokobi had figured that he was just doing it to mess with people.

"My move? I'll play a card, then," he said dryly, placing down a card of his own. It was a six of clubs, matching Yorokobi's current score completely. "Seems that we're even. I suppose you're going to have to bet again now if you want to continue."

Yorokobi remained silent, simply looking towards the other player with contentment.

"Oh? Oh, that's right. You don't have much else to bet with, do you?" A condescending smirk wiped across Takumi's face, lifting up out of his bored stupor. "Yes, I think that's why I wasn't interested in playing with you much in the first place. You only have one ID card and there's not much else that you can give me. You're a very boring person when it comes down to-"

"I'll do anything," Yorokobi interrupted with a sudden conviction. "Any deal, any help, any sacrifice, I'll do it. Legal, illegal, whatever it is, I trust you won't make me do anything too bad. If it is, then I'll just have to suck it up."

Takumi scoffed with a complicated mix of expressions. "Damn, you're desperate. I shoulda known just from how instantly you went on the attack with the ID cards, huh? Alright then... How about this? I'll bet again and keep playing with you... If you just do one simple thing for me right now."

"Huh? As in... Right this second? Not even if I lose?"

He nodded in reply. "Yup. It's too bad though, I don't think you'll object. All you have to do is give a call to Izanami."

Yorokobi eyed the man suspiciously. "And say what?"

Jovially, he shrugged. "Whatever. Tell her 'hello,' say her sense of fashion stinks, compliment her fedora, tell her that you're actually gay, anything goes."

"W-wait," distracted for a moment, Yorokobi stumbled over his own words. "Who told you-?"

He cut himself off before he could finish the sentence. Takumi simply smiled in response.

"Uh, yeah." Getting his mind off his own blunders, Yorokobi took out his rustic phone and flipped it open. "I just have to call her, right? What if she doesn't pick up?" He was already filtering through his contacts.

"Then you would have done as I asked, and you'll be fine. This is a game of gambling, hun," Takumi reminded. "If nothing happens from it, then it's just my loss. I'll take that. A game is a game, after all."

Still not trusting the situation, Yorokobi dialed the number on his phone before holding it to his ear. The phone nestled between his locks of chestnut hair and gently rang with a calming vibration for more than a few seconds. Though the situation felt a little stressful for him, there was something nice about the robotic consistency of it all.

This was, of course, broken when Izanami picked up on the other line. "What the HELL are you doing!?" She demanded with a harsh and rushed tone.

"I am... With Takumi?" Yorokobi answered hesitantly, afraid to piss the woman off even more for... Just existing.

Izanami then hung up. Suffice to say, Yorokobi had a strong feeling that this was not part of her plan.

Though he couldn't hear Izanami's end of the line, Takumi still seemed pleased with the outcome and crossed his hands over each other smugly. "Seems like that went well. Let's give her five minutes to get up here, shall we? It shouldn't even take that long."

"What? How can you even know where she is right now?"

Confidence in his gaze, Takumi peered up with his ravenously vampiric eyes. "Intuition and deduction. It's all about being able to read people. I'm sure she's even already told you, but it's easy to know what someone's doing when their motives are so blindingly simple."

"Ah, but it's no matter," he dismissed with a shrug of his shoulders. "She'll be here soon anyway."

"And if she doesn't?" Yorokobi asked.

"Don't worry," Takumi smiled again, "I know she will. I can tell these things."

* * *

The cafeteria of the school was surprisingly one of the most normal things about the place. Though it wasn't very spacious, the small class sizes more than made up for it, probably ensuring that most could eat alone if they wanted to. And, of course, that would be assuming that the school hadn't anticipated people attempting to be antisocial and had already taken away half of the tables and chairs.

Needless to say, Izanami had made a habit out of eating solitary and near the wall, though that wasn't her concern for the night. It was a Sunday, and just as Yorokobi had figured, the door to the kitchen was open. It was surreal walking behind the counters where the staff would work, but the school didn't have much concern for that kind of thing anyway.

About half an hour before she had predicted Ethan would arrive, the kitchen had already been cleared out. It was a welcoming space, filled corner to corner with all sorts of kitchen related accessories that Izanami couldn't care less about. The staff appeared to do a good enough job at cleaning everything up and sorting it all apart, though that was to be expected.

Not much to her surprise though, a few baking supplies were left out. She made sure to not disturb any of it; it was probably left out specifically for Ethan, after all. Instead, she'd have to figure something else out. She needed some place to hide.

Peering through the cabinets and closets, she started to realize just how limited her understanding of the kitchen actually was. Was flour something that a patissier would need? Or was that baking soda? Both? Regardless she needed to make a decision before too long. It would have been disastrous to hide in a place that he would check anyway.

A little hesitant, she quickly shuffled a few supplies aside and cleared a space in a cabinet underneath one of the islands near the oven. It was cramped for her even without anything else stuffed in there with her, but she had just enough control to barely move the door whenever she wanted. This gave her a perfect view of where she assumed that Ethan would be working.

Staying inside the thing wasn't entirely comfortable though. Every edge of her body was somehow being cramped or otherwise assaulted by the small constraints, and after a while she felt a prickling loss of circulation in the arm she was using to hold herself up. She told herself to endure it nonetheless.

Fifteen especially boring minutes later, that very same man who had attempted to name himself after a large musical instrument had walked in. She awoke from her near meditative state and focused on paying attention to the sounds around her.

He calmly, yet somehow loudly, stomped around her before seeming to mess with whatever supplies had been left out by the staff. He didn't say a word, but he occasionally let out smug gruffs. It seemed that he was still trying to hang onto some semblance of pride after his prior embarrassments with Izanami.

For the most part, she could hear him doing... Stuff. He was too close to her vantage point for her to want to risk opening it up to see what he was doing. She figured that he was just putting together some sort of baked good, which was supported by the weird sloppy sounds that he was making on the table. She definitely hoped that's what he was doing, at least.

Actually, it was surreal listening to the man be so quiet. Had he always been like this, or was it just her effect on him? She considered the more than likely vain thoughts for a moment, but couldn't come to an answer. Regardless, he really wasn't doing much of anything interesting.

As that realization started to come to her, she mouthed a cuss under her breath. He hadn't done ANYTHING interesting! What was this to him, some sort of destressing mechanism? How despicable. She hated men like him, they were ones that just tried to run away from everything. She held her breath strict from anger as-

A phone buzzed. After a brief moment of panic, she realized it wasn't hers. There was a recognizable ringing coming from somewhere outside, she figured it must have been Ethan's. That was soon proven right as he picked up.

"Greetings," he responded in a voice crossing the line between monotone and snooty. He paused for the reply. "Yes, I'm free. I'm just doing a bit of practice with one of the recipes. I want to make sure I have everything memorized. With how hectic this year has been already, things have been more difficult than I thought."

Careful to not budge anything or cause a noise, Izanami held her ear as close to the commotion as she could. It was impossible to tell what the other line was saying, but it was certainly saying something. There was an underlying commanding tone behind the words that she could pick up on.

"No, no, I've not been having any monetary troubles. The school's actually pretty forgiving with that stuff apparently. I don't think they actually believe that we're related, so-" he stopped suddenly, apparently interrupted.

"... Yes, yes, I'm sorry." He sighed, clinking his kitchen wear down on the table to further invest himself in the conversation. "My point is that I'm fine. Is that all you came here to talk about?"

Izanami couldn't figure out what the other line was saying for the next while, but she assumed from context that it was Ratto. Whoever they were, they went on for a while.

After the end of it all, Ethan let out a short yet smug scoff. "Really? I must say, this really isn't like you to be trying to do so many things at once. Aren't you almost done with your work over in the States anyway? Why bother doing it so soon?"

The other line gave a short reply back. "... Fair enough," Ethan sighed with exasperation. "I don't blame you for trying to be cautious after the mess that Izanami caused me."

Again, there was a quick and snappy response. Ethan, now much more meek, spoke, "ah, y-yes ma'am. I won't make the same mistake again."

Suddenly, Izanami heard another pair of footsteps coming closer from the entrance. Before she had time to register what was going on, they spoke. "Oh, Ethan?" She registered the voice, it was one of the more placid students in her class.

Ethan immediately dropped what he was doing and rushed over to the source of the voice, cussing his lungs out as he screamed at her. "What the _hell_ are you doing in here!? Don't you know that you need a teacher's permission to be in here!? The only reason they leave this place open is because the staff was tired of waiting for _me_!" He went on for a while with similar phrases.

Taking a short moment, Izanami edged open the door to her hiding spot. She knew that he wouldn't be able to see her from where he was, so she took the opportunity. Just as she was hoping, she was in luck.

Thanks to Ethan's obliviousness, he had quite literally _dropped_ what he was doing. Most of the baking supplies seemed to be alright (at least to her, she never had an eye for that stuff), but in his rush to leave his phone had actually dropped from the countertop and onto the floor in front of her. Though the other end was silent, she could see that the call was still ongoing.

Without a moment's hesitation, she whipped out her own phone and flipped it open. The incredibly mediocre camera function was on as fast as she could get it, and she snapped the image of the number that was on Ethan's phone. Just as quickly as she came out, she retreated back into her hiding space, now with an extra bonus on her side.

After another moment or two of one-sided shouting, Ethan came back and picked up the phone, not seeming to have noticed anything amiss. With a large sigh, he started talking over the line again. "Apologies. Someone had come into the kitchen and surprised me."

"No, no," he replied after a short pause, "it wasn't any trouble. It was that one lady that looks like a peach that I told you about a while ago. She ran out of food in her dorm so she just assumed that she was allowed to pillage this particular kitchen like some sort of ruffian."

There was a longer pause this time. "Hm? Yes, I'm in the school's cafeteria kitchen. They let me use it for my baking. I like it better here than- huh? Why is it an issue?"

Izanami couldn't gauge what the subject of the conversation was anymore, but something within her grew nervous. Her breath, still tempered by her own will, managed to shake and shudder. It was only now that she thought about what would happen if she was found out. She tried her best to keep herself steady.

"You're so weird, y'know that?" Ethan said with an unusually casual tone. "Alright then, fine."

He took a short breath before loudly exclaiming to the rest of the kitchen, "I doubt anything will come from this, but Ratto Osore would like you to know that you have her phone number. She would also like you to know that she's letting you keep as a... What was it again?" There was a small pause. "Ah, right, she's letting you keep it as a consolation prize, I guess. Be honored, ghosts of the kitchen!"

This time, everything in her body flinched on instinct. Her breath halted as everything in her already uncomfortable form clenched up. How had she known? Was it a lucky guess? Had Izanami made too much noise?... And what the hell did she mean by consolation prize?

Ethan sighed before lowering his voice. "Why would you make me say something so embarrassing...? What if someone was actually listening!? You really confuse me sometimes..."

The conversation slowly petered out until there wasn't anything to talk about, then Ratto abruptly hung up. It seemed that she wasn't one for small talk... Or was that just because she knew someone might be listening in? Izanami wasn't sure.

Regardless, things returned to normal after a while. Ethan's composure grew back, and soon it was back to the boring routine he had started. It was about as uninteresting as before, but Izanami had less to complain about and more to worry about instead.

She stared at the photo on her phone. Ethan hadn't registered the number on his phone, but that could have just been for a variety of reasons. Still though, it seemed to her like a genuine phone number from another country, presumably America. Was it a burner phone? No, that was unlikely considering what Ratto had said before, but even still Izanami was hesitant to think too much of anything about it.

Then a phone started ringing again. This time, the sound came from much closer to her. Had Ethan dropped his phone again?

That wasn't the case. She looked down and saw that Yorokobi was calling her phone. In her shining brilliance, it appeared that she had forgotten to set her phone to silent for her petty little stealth mission. Without enough time to dwell on the thought, she immediately panicked and bolted out of the cabinet.

It was definitely uncomfortable, and she almost definitely got a bruise and maybe a splinter or two, but she shot the door open and leapt out. Ethan, who was already investigating the noise, had been struck face-first by the sudden motion and fell backwards into the opposing counter.

While he was still too stunned to do anything more than curse at her adamantly, Izanami quickly ran out of the kitchen and away into the night. Thankfully, it seemed that Ethan's lack of ability to do basic things also stretched to chasing people as well. Only a few seconds after she had been rung, Izanami picked up the call.

"What the _hell _are you doing!?" She yelled out.

* * *

Whew! It took a mighty long while, but here we are! I have quite a bit of writing organized already, so expect another update or two within the next week or so. I've had a major funk lately in terms of keeping up with my college work, so I've been at manic levels of writing productivity... (At this point, I think I need to promise to myself that I'll finish my homework before I start working on this story again...)

Nevertheless, here's hoping that you enjoyed! Even if I do take a small break, I have the entirety of this arc written out, so I should be able to edit it out to be good without much difficulty. Be sure to like, comment, and subscribe.


	7. Chapter 7: Hurry Up

RECAP OF HORRIBLE, UNBALANCED, SHITTY, UNNAMED CARD GAME!

Huzzah!

The game uses a standard fifty two card deck, and each player starts with five cards in their hand. The rest of the deck is tucked away until later.

Starting with player one, the two players take turns revealing one of their cards to each other. After the second player lays down their card, then both player one and player two must up their bet if they want to continue the game. This could easily lead to a situation of chicken where both players are trying to psych their opponents and betting higher and higher.

But how are cards scored? The only thing that matters are the points associated with the cards, and it's fairly straight forward. The two of hearts is worth two, the seven of diamonds is worth seven, etc. The only notable aspect to this is that the jacks are worth eleven, the queens are worth twelve, and the kings are worth thirteen. Aces in this case count as a one, and nothing else.

Of course, the game would be boring if it was so simple, so how can you win if your hand is lower than your opponent's? The only thing that determines a winning hand is player two, who decides whether or not the lowest score or the highest score wins. He does when both players are down to two cards. When down to this amount of cards, you also need to take the deck back out of hiding and reveal all of its cards except for two.

In essence, you will be put into a situation where there are only six cards that have left to be revealed in the game. Assuming you're one of the players, then this would mean that there are two cards of the possible four that your opponent has to have. From the second player's perspective, it's a pretty nice deal depending on how you interpret the rules...

In this game, Yorokobi has taken the place of player one and Takumi has taken the place of player two. Yorokobi has bet his own ID card while Takumi bet the card of another student, Arata Abe, which he apparently just had laying around his room. Just now, Yorokobi got around having to bet something else by fulfilling an immediate favor to Takumi: simply just calling Izanami on the phone.

RECAP OVER

* * *

As the time passed waiting for Izanami to move up to his room, Takumi realized just how boring Yorokobi really was. Several moments of silence had passed as he stared with discontent at Yorokobi's meek figure.

The wimp of a man had nothing to say, but he never would, Takumi knew that. He knew that Yorokobi's favorite flavor of ice cream would be rocky road. He knew that Yorokobi's favorite drink in the summertime would be a chilled glass of lemonade. He knew that if he had to choose between a blue box and a red box, Yorokobi would always pick the blue box first. Nothing about this opponent of his was interesting, subversive, or otherwise creative. It was completely irritating.

Noticing Takumi's sour expression, Yorokobi tried to speak, sadly succeeding in the process. "So, uh... You haven't bet anything yet. What are you going to put down?" It turned out to be a disappointingly predictable question.

"Just be patient," Takumi folded his cards closer together with a delicate motion. "Don't worry, I didn't forget. I'll bet something before you have to play another card, don't worry your little mediocre sheeple head."

A few more seconds passed with an annoying silence before a pounding came from the door. It was frenzied.

"Would you mind answering that? I promise I won't peek at your cards." He forced a smile to Yorokobi, momentarily masking his lack of interest. He didn't have a reason to look at those cards anyway, he had a good idea of what they were just by looking at the way that Yorokobi had organized his hand.

Somewhat hesitantly, Yorokobi got up and trailed to the entrance of the room to open the door. Just as Takumi had predicted, Izanami had arrived. Just as Yorokobi had feared however, Izanami also seemed to be incredibly pissed.

"Give me an explanation," she demanded as she pushed herself past the brewer without a second thought. Though it originally seemed like she was talking to Yorokobi, she quickly turned her attention onto the smug red haired man peering at her.

"Explanation," Takumi sarcastically remarked.

Pretending to still be relevant to the conversation, Yorokobi followed the aqua haired menace. "It was just part of the game I was playing with him," he pleaded. "He said that I could just call you instead of betting anything else!"

That was enough to stop her march, and enough to draw her attention back to him. "What? And you just did it!? What the hell sort of idiot are you!?"

Not entirely sure how to react to the sudden provocation, Yorokobi shook in place. "I didn't have anything else to bet! I already bet my own ID card, and it's not like I have anyone else's! I'm just doing the best I can here," he defended. "I don't even know why you're upset in the first place, Izanami."

Gritting her teeth, she glared between him and Takumi. "... Fine, I guess we're doing this now. I'm throwing you under the bus later though when-"

"When Ethan reports you to the school faculty for spying on him in the kitchen?" Takumi dryly cut in, holding back a yawn. "Yes, yes, you're very dramatic, aren't you? I'm very intimidated, you've overthrown the patriarchy, blah, blah, blah. Do you have anything a bit more original to come up with? I'm a tad bored right now."

Izanami and Yorokobi both stared back at him with disbelief, though presumably for different reasons.

"Whatever," Izanami dismissed before Yorokobi could ask what the hell was going on. "I'll take over for Yorokobi, just tell me the rules."

"Oh?" Takumi's eyes tilted with interest. "You're taking over for him? I don't recall mentioning anything about that, I just told him to call you, plain and simple. Did you plan this or something?" He knew that they obviously wouldn't have, but he was nice enough to at least give them the thought.

Stumbling a little, Yorokobi rushed back to his seat. "We didn't! And I'm not gonna just let her take it either."

"Excuse me?" Izanami shot him a glare as she stepped closer. "You dragged me up here and I'm not even playing?"

Yorokobi took his cards back into his hands. "This is still my game with him. You coming up here was just part of that for some reason. Hell, you didn't even have to come here, not that it matters what you did I guess." He glanced behind him to peer at her. "Besides, didn't you say that you wanted me to go against Takumi because he could read you too well?"

Izanami was silent but clearly irritated behind narrowed eyes.

"I know you don't like relying on other people and all that, but just trust me on this one."

Mildly impressed, Takumi nodded. "As much as I hate to say it, I agree with Yorokobi. No one has the right to take away someone's spot in a game without permission, after all. If you're that excited to lose too, Izanami, there's always next game!" He gave a cocky grin. "For now though, I recommend sitting off to the side."

With a grumble, she stepped aside and looked over at the table from her spot on the wall. "Fine, for now. What are you even playing, anyway?"

"Doesn't really have a name." Takumi danced the cards held in his fingers. "We made it up on the spot."

"Basically," Yorokobi continued, "we just keep showing each other our cards one by one, and we score them by their numbers. On player one's turn, that's me by the way, we both have to put down a bet or else we have to fold."

"This continues until we both have two cards. After that, the entire deck is shown except for two other cards," Takumi gestured to the deck on the side of the table. "At that point, then the second player decides whether or not a low score or a high score wins the game. Right now, we both have sixes on the table, so it's pretty even."

"That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard of." Izanami stared at their set up. "That's just a game of card counting on the second player's side. This is stupidly unbalanced. Why would either of you agree to this?"

Takumi faked a yawn. "Don't judge someone else's decision making, love. I'd like to get back to playing against your codependent friend here before I age another eighteen years."

"First of all, he's not my friend-" she attempted to interject.

"Speaking of," Yorokobi cut Izanami off in a way that Takumi hadn't quite expected. It was rare to see such direct action from him. "You still haven't put down that bet. Which ID card are you putting down?"

Reminding himself to stay careful, Takumi mulled over his next words with a smile. "Hm? Who said anything about me betting an ID card? All I said was that I would bet something. I never said what it was going to be, did I?"

Yorokobi opened his mouth to speak, but found little to say. All he could do was narrow his eyes and give back a dirty look. There was something amusing about how defiant the green saucer eyes stared at Takumi.

It was so entertaining that Takumi decided to test the waters. He wanted to see how far he could take the pathetic morsel. "Very well then, I did promise to bet though, right?" He took a card out from his hand. "I'll bet the deal that I have with Izanami, the one about getting to see Ethan's sister. In other words, I'll call it off if you win."

"Oh hell no!" Izanami snapped out, marching towards the table. "What the hell does that mean!? You can't just do that!"

Takumi ignored the screaming girl, instead watching the predictably lost and troubled reaction from Yorokobi. His mouth hung open and agap like a genetic failure of a dog. "Wait... But... I don't even want that to happen! What sort of bet is that, Takumi?"

He shrugged with an annoying grin. "It's a bet, isn't it? We didn't put any limitations on what we could bet. If you wanted to play for specifically the ID cards, you should have said so when we were designing the rules. You're welcome to fold and give up your own ID card."

Before he could respond, Izanami had already swiveled to glare into Yorokobi's soul. "Fold. I'm telling you to fold right now, you don't know what you're doing."

Yorokobi flinched as his fingers grew tighter around the cards. He dodged Izanami's glare and stared back towards Takumi with a conflicted look and seemed to bite the inside of his mouth.

"Yorokobi, look at me," Izanami demanded. "I'm telling you to fold right now. You haven't bet anything big yet except for that card, right? You can fold, and then I can figure out something with Takumi to get it back. This is really important!" Despite her requests, Yorokobi still stared at the glittering con artist himself.

Still enjoying the theatrics, Takumi waved the card in his hand jovially. "I dunno, wouldn't Yorokobi like to hear what the deal is first, anyway? You're always keeping him in the dark about so much. I bet that-"

Yorokobi ignored the meaningless babble and pulled out his own card. "It's my turn," he insisted.

Just from where Yorokobi had pulled it, and everything else he knew about him, Takumi guessed that it would be a nine. For the fun of it, he internally made a guess that it would be the nine of clubs. Unfortunately, Yorokobi had only laid down the nine of diamonds. "That brings me to... fifteen." He quickly peered back to Takumi. "Now are you going to play a damn card or not?"

For a second, Takumi was taken aback. How had he been surprised yet again? Yorokobi was certainly boring, but... The extent to which he was boring was simultaneously disappointing and hard to believe. He pulled himself together and put on a smirk. "Right, right... I suppose you just want to get back to playing. Fine then."

Takumi put the card down on the table as he turned it face up. It was a five of hearts. "So, in combination with my six, that brings me up to an eleven, sheeple boy." He set his other cards aside. There were strategies that one could try to take with a game like this, attempting to fool the opponent into thinking you had some sort of set up with your cards, but Takumi already had his plan figured out.

"Did you just call him a sheeple?" Izanami cut in. "You know that's a plural noun, right?"

"I'm four points ahead of you now."

"Or four points behind, dearie," Takumi reminded. "Remember, it all depends on how I decide the game is scored, and I'm the one in charge of deciding that."

"Well," Yorokobi folded his cards back together. "It's not like you'll know my entire hand by then. I'll still have two hidden cards."

Takumi smiled to himself. "To each their own, dearie. What are you betting for our next round?"

"I still don't have anything else to give you," Yorokobi said, "but I'll bet anything you want as long as you bet one of the ID cards. Just like last time, except you'll actually follow through with what we intended." He gave him a look that only served to give Takumi a short moment of amusement.

"Fine then." Takumi reached down and pulled out another one of the ID cards. "Since I already have one of my better units on the table, I'll throw in another first year I'm more willing to part with." He set it on the table beside Arata's card. "Haruhi Sakamoto, Ultimate Flash Fiction Author. Interesting talent, isn't it? I was thinking of having her do some poetry or something for me, it could be neat."

Yorokobi stared back silently.

"Y'know, I actually heard a rumor that she was going out with that one man..." Takumi went on. "I forget his name, honestly. The legal boy that you and Izanami talked with all the way back in that other game. Something, something... Nakajima? I don't know, I don't actually have his ID card yet!" Takumi gave a light chuckle. He would never forget something that important, but he was enjoying getting to tease Yorokobi.

"What do you want from me?" He replied with a cold tone.

Exhaling, Takumi slouched in his chair. "Fine, fine..." He peered up at Yorkobi from his cards with a death defying stare. "If you lose, you won't be able to play a game with me again. You'll stay out of this forever, and I won't take you up on any more offers. Understood? If you don't want that, here's your chance to back down."

Yorokobi held his cards closer and looked away, avoiding eye contact. Somewhat hesitantly, he spoke, seeming to change the topic. "Takumi... Why were you lying about forgetting Hiroshi's name? There's no way you forgot already, he was there with us back when you made me watch that game with Izanami and Piano."

"Ethan," Izanami unimportantly reminded from the background.

Takumi's smile only grew. "Ah, just thought it would be a little fun. Besides, people tend to get unnerved when I show off how much I really know about them. Isn't it polite of me to hold back a little?"

"No it isn't!" He proclaimed with a sudden shift in mood. "Is this still just a game to you, Takumi? Do you always think of people like they're fictional characters that don't exist? Like they're just some sort of trading card fad? These are actual lives here, trying to do their best to be legitimately good people, y'know!"

Leaning back in his seat, Takumi rested his chin in the palm of his hand. He broke another smirk. "You may be boring, but I have to say... Your defiance is really entertaining. I suppose you at least have that going for you, right?"

"Don't dodge the question." Yorokobi's eyes narrowed toward him again, but this time they were sharper. Takumi could tell that his confidence was somehow only growing. It was starting to get entertaining. "If you keep ignoring me it's only going to turn out worse for you in the end. I'm tired of watching you toy around with people, and it's really starting to piss me off."

Certainly, there was something to be said about how indignant the normally timid boy was. "Very well then," he conceded. "If you're gonna go through all this effort just to get a reaction out of me, I may as well reward you. If nothing else, think of it as a prize for keeping me at least mildly amused. I suppose I have nothing left other than to exploit your weaknesses. Does that make your pretty little heart feel better?"

"Not really," Yorokobi admitted. "Just keep playing your cards after mine so we can keep going with the game. I just wanted to bring that up."

Holding back a chuckle, Takumi looked over to see Izanami's reaction. She was still by the same wall, watching the two of them intently while being mostly quiet. It seemed that she had accepted her role as an observer to this show. He doubted there was any chance that she could help anyone cheat, but he made sure to keep his cards hidden just in case.

Yorokobi looked at his cards again for a few seconds. He carefully picked a card and laid it down, showing off the four of diamonds. "Now I'm at seventeen. Your turn."

Still, and forever still, grinning, Takumi laid down his next card. He could sense the desperate plays from the cards that Yorokobi was laying out, but he enjoyed keeping the game close just to toy with him more. "I'll play the nine of spades. Now I'm at nineteen! Splendid."

"You're ahead again."

"These rounds really go by fast, huh?" Takumi mused. "No matter, I'll assume we're going through the same theratrics as last time about the bets? Do you want to do it before or after we reveal cards? We're both down to two now."

Yorkobi nodded. "Yeah, but let's do it after we reveal the cards, actually."

"Alrighty then." Takumi twirled his fingers through each other, snapping them with a satisfying crack of release. "Let's get to it, hm?"

He grabbed the deck from the table and took away the top two cards. "We'll save these two as the wild cards so that neither one of us knows for certain what the other has." After that, Takumi started to flip over the deck one by one in a uniform pattern to keep everything sorted. By the end, it was very easy to tell which cards were missing.

"So, discounting the cards that we've already played, there's..." Takumi counted them out. "The five of clubs, the three of clubs,, ten of hearts, jack of clubs, queen of spades, and... The king of hearts!"

Takumi laid back in his chair now that the other cards had been laid out. "Those are the only ones missing. Did you know that the king of hearts is also called the suicide king by some? That's because in many printings, he's depicted in a way that makes it look like he's stabbing his own throat."

Yorokobi stared back at him intensely. It was amusing watching him try his best to not look at his cards.

"I wonder why that is. Maybe the fool of a king got too attached to so many lovers or something and killed himself out of despair. What do you think it is, Yorokobi?"

"I think you should tell me what to bet so that we can get back to playing."

Takumi held back a laugh. "Very well then. You wanted me to stop covering up how much I knew about you guys, right? Didn't it piss you off that I was trying to be humble or something?"

There was no response, though he could hear Izanami getting agitated in the background.

"Y'know," Takumi set his cards on the table. "I can't imagine us being any more different, really. I lived in a pretty small town once, like you did, but I hated every single moment of being there. Everything was so boring and predictable. Some of the elders even tried to call me possessed just because I could tell what they were thinking. I was above them all, and it didn't matter at all because of how ignorant they were."

"But that's the way of the world, isn't it?" Though Takumi's eyes were deeper and more serious than they had been before, a slow and canine-like smile crept over his lips. "Skill doesn't get acknowledged for the sake of it, despite what this school says. Everywhere I go is just the same dumb and stupid planet."

"Stop complimenting yourself about how egotistical you are and get on with it," Yorokobi said bluntly.

This incurred a pause. The grin on Takumi's face vanished as he showed a true color of intensity. Over his glazed and narrowed eyes was a sense of viciousness. "I'm not egotistical, I'm merely realistic. Don't bring me down to that level. My skills simply exceed yours.

"You're a craft brewer, that's your talent. Despite how you act, I bet you're quite the scientist on the inside. A logician, someone who sees things only in the point of view that they can understand. Don't act like you know more about how people work than I do," he insisted.

Yorokobi didn't argue, but Takumi could tell that he was fighting himself not to. Instead, he clenched his teeth and waited.

With that out of the way, Takumi felt more free. He put the smile back on his face. "Let's move on. You want a bet, right? Fine then, If you're so tired of me being nice I have no reason to continue putting on an act. Let's see where that gets you, hm?" There was a twinge of something holding back behind his jovial tone. It was as if he was choking down his own venomous instincts. "I think this one will be a hit ."

Just as Takumi predicted, his opponent stayed silent.

"If you lose this game," Takumi's smile swayed further into a wicked grin. "Then you have to get a tattoo of a baseball bat. Could be anywhere, do it on your ass for all I care. I just want you to get it. I know connections that can make it happen."

Yorokobi's eyes flickered rampantly before staring at Takumi with awe. Everything in the man's body seemed to freeze at that moment before it slowly melted into a disturbed shake. "You... You couldn't..." He stopped himself. "N-no, why would you ask that? What makes you think-?"

Takumi smiled back, cutting him off. "I did my research. Shouldn't that be obvious? You asked me to stop holding back." There was a delectable irony in all of this somewhere, Takumi longed to enjoy it.

"No," he weakly mumbled before staring down in submission. "That's..."

"What's so bad about that? Is he really that much of a wimp?" Izanami chimed in from the background, somehow becoming relevant for a short moment. "I know it's illegal and all, but it can't be that hard to go undetected, right? Won't be too long before it'll be legal anyway."

With a devilish chuckle, Takumi shrugged. "You'll see why it matters to him someday, perhaps. It's not your business anyway, now is it? This is about sending a message." He didn't even turn to the girl.

"No..." Yorokobi repeated.

"Yes!" Takumi responded.

Looking back up into Takumi's eyes with a deviant determination, Yorokobi spoke louder. "No. That's not enough. You're still holding back. Are we just supposed to go back and forth like this? I don't want that."

"Excuse me?"

"I want you to bet all this whole ID card business so that I don't have to look at your face any longer," he said with conviction. "Whatever it'll take, I'll bet it. I won't even argue. I want you to give me all of the cards in exchange."

That was hard for him to understand at first. It was so... Undeniably reckless and stupid! Losing composure, Takumi's head hung low as he started to chuckle. It was a dry and sarcastic laugh that made fun of anyone unfortunate enough to listen. He slowly looked back up as his nonstop cackling rose.

"You're really that, stupid huh?" He continued. "You're the most boring person at this whole school, but I'm gonna milk all the enjoyment I can get out of you tonight! Seems like a win for me!"

Yorokobi looked back at him with a cruel gaze. "You like watching me suffer or whatever, right? You already know about the deaths, don't you?"

Takumi's muscles clenched up in excitement. "Oh! You wouldn't! You're really giving me that to work with!?" He gave a sudden and quick scoff. "You're so stupid! Alright, fine. I'll play your little game."

Calming himself down, Takumi reclined. He let off a deep breath before speaking. "Alright... I'll bet all of the cards I have if you agree to film a video with me right now. I won't post it to the public unless you lose, but... In that video, I want you to confess to what you did back then. How's that sound?"

Izanami stepped closer to the table, seemingly more confused yet invested than ever. "What? What does that even have to do with anything? Deaths?"

"Oh, it's nothing too important to anything relevant right now, I guess... But it's pretty big news for him," Takumi mulled aloud as he stared into Yorokobi's dull yet quivering eyes. "Haven't you ever wondered why someone like him is so tame? So eager to please? His talent is borderline illegal since he's a minor, and yet he still acts like such a goodie two shoes!"

"I guess, but..." Izanami glanced over to look at the cornered boy. Though she was cold just a moment ago, a few gentle curves of worry had risen into her feminine eyes. "Still..."

"Do you have a point to make, or are you just speaking so that you can feel less unimportant to the situation?" Takumi accused. "You'd notice there was something weird to him if you only paid attention to what he said, it's written all over! Someone doesn't act as guilty as him without having done something first. Hell, don't you think it's kind of strange that he'd try and make some weird variant of-"

Interrupting the not-so-poor lad, Yorokobi spoke up. "That's enough," he said with a somber yet firm designation. Then, without a moment's hesitation, he looked straight into the beast's eyes. "Takumi... I guess it'd make sense for you to know. You probably did research on everyone around here, right? It couldn't take too much bribery to figure out the truth."

He took a deep and hollow breath before. "Your tactics are still cheap and dirty, but I won't falter. I accept as long as you promise to bet what I ask."

A sly grin smeared across Takumi's lips. "Your funeral. Truth be told it's probably not even that big of an issue, but I know it'll rip you out from the inside, won't it? It'll be what you get for getting too deep into this stuff."

Even still, something in Yorokobi seemed to resist giving in completely. That was fine, Takumi wouldn't let himself be intimidated just because someone was a little stubborn. If the cretin was planning something, he'd have seen through whatever it was from the start.

In fact, from the very start of the game, Yorkobi hadn't made any suspicious actions at all, not that a boring simpleton like him would. As far as Takumi saw it, the game was already won in his favor.

"Izanami," Takumi snapped her to attention with a call. "In my desk, in the second drawer down on the right. It should be open, and there's a video camera inside of it. Could you be a dear and fetch it for me?"

"No."

With a sigh, Takumi set his cards down and slowly walked to his desk. He moved quietly to make sure that he'd hear if someone tried to disturb his cards, but no one was foolish enough to. After all, curiosity had probably taken Izanami and fear had taken Yorokobi, so neither were in a position to do much. Currently, Takumi held all of the power in the room.

It was boring that way, he'd have to start this soon so that things could get interesting again. Without hesitance he brought the camera over and sat back down, noticing that the others had barely even moved since he got up. "You don't have to be statues, you know," he reminded. "It's not like I'm actually gonna kill the guy."

"Don't worry, this camera can't connect to the internet or anything. I just brought it to the school in case of something like this... But anyway, you know what to do, right?" Takumi asked and waited for a nod in reply from Yorokobi. Once he agreed, Takumi raised the camera up and held it so that it was easy to see the brewer's face. Even still though, he was careful to leave out any major indicators that it was his room. If there was anything small he missed, he knew it could be edited in post. "Okay, now everyone be sure to be quiet, and..."

After the recording started, he gave a silent thumbs up and a mischievous smile.

Steeling himself with another deep breath, it started. "My name is Yorokobi Ida, currently enrolled at Hope's Peak Academy as the Ultimate Craft Brewer, and I've been the cause of two deaths within my family while keeping it a secret to the outside world."

* * *

Sorry about the long wait for this chapter, even though I said it wouldn't be too long. This spring is still pretty hellish for me! Luckily though I'm already halfway through my quarter, so eventually I'll (hopefully) get a break from my classes!

In other news, I hope you enjoyed this section. This entire scene has ended up being really long, so I actually had to insert a small cliff hanger here and even extend the next part a little so that I could get something that could possibly resemble decent pacing... My only hope is that nothing in this scene feels too out of place or sudden to a point that it becomes an issue. If you ended up skimming through this chapter a little, I'd definitely forgive you.


End file.
